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FAITH,  WAK,  AND  POLICY 


FAITH,  WAK,  AND  POLICY 

ADDRESSES  AND  ESSAYS  ON 
THE  EUROPEAN  WAR 

BY 

GILBERT  MURRAY 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON   MIFFLIN   COMPANY 

@&e  Ritoergi&e  $re£g  CambriDge 
1917 


Gift 


COPYRIGHT,   1917,   BY  GILBERT   MURRAY 
ALL    RIGHTS    RESERVED 

Published  August  IQ17 


PREFACE 

Such  interest  as  this  book  may  possess  will  be,  I 
think,  in  large  part  historical.  Changes  have  assuredly 
been  wrought  in  the  minds  of  all  thoughtful  people 
throughout  Europe  by  the  experiences  of  these  three 
shattering  years.  And  it  seems  worth  while  to  have  a 
record  of  the  mind  of  a  fairly  representative  English 
Liberal,  standing  just  outside  the  circle  of  official  poli- 
£  tics.  Consequently  I  have  arranged  the  various  papers 
in  order  of  time  rather  than  in  groups  according  to 
subject,  and  I  have  not  altered  a  sentence. 

The  papers  treat  of  the  faith  in  which  the  British 
Government  and  nation  entered  the  war,  and  in  which 
for  my  part  I  still  continue;  of  the  war  itself  and  the 
human  problems  raised  by  it  and  the  impossibility,  at 
two  given  dates,  of  immediate  peace;  lastly,  of  certain 
questions  of  international  policy,  such  as  the  possibility 
of  democratic  control  in  foreign  affairs,  the  action  of 
Great  Britain  at  sea,  our  attitude  towards  Ireland  and 
India,  and  our  relations  with  the  United  States. 

I  have  said  nothing  about  home  politics,  because,  in 
the  first  place,  if  I  wished  to  exhort  or  to  criticize  my 
own  Government,  I  should  naturally  do  so  at  home  and 
not  in  America;  and  in  the  second  place,  because,  in 
spite  of  a  number  of  minor  issues  which  have  caused 
acute  feeling,  there  has  not  risen  as  yet  any  cardinal  di- 
vision between  our  main  political  parties.  The  policy 
with  which  we  entered  the  war  still  holds  the  field,  and 
the  unity  of  the  nation,  though  at  times  dangerously 


viii  PREFACE 

of  fools.  This  is,  I  feel  confident,  the  belief,  spoken  or 
unspoken,  of  the  overwhelming  majority  of  the  nation, 
whether  in  the  army  or  out  of  it.  The  problem,  of  course, 
will  be  to  choose  the  best  moment,  neither  too  soon  nor 
too  late. 

Since  the  last  of  these  papers  was  written,  two  events 
have  occurred,  so  vast  and  beneficent,  at  least  in  their 
present  appearances,  that  hitherto  one  had  hardly  dared 
to  pray  for  them.  The  long-dreamed-of  Russian  Revolu- 
tion, for  which  through  generation  after  generation  so 
many  martyrs  have  died,  is  at  last  a  reality.  One  of  the 
most  gifted  nations  in  the  world,  comprising  a  hundred 
and  forty  millions  of  human  beings,  after  being  held 
down  for  centuries  under  the  worst  despotism  in  the 
civilized  world,  is  now  free.  This  is  marvellous,  and  we 
cannot  yet  take  it  in. 

The  effect  of  the  revolution  on  the  fortunes  of  the  war 
is,  of  course,  still  doubtful.  It  may  be  conclusive.  It 
may,  conceivably,  provoke  a  similar  movement  in  Ger- 
many and  bring  down  that  Prussian  despotism  which 
Mr.  Lloyd  George,  in  memorable  words,  has  described 
as  "the  only  obstacle  to  peace."  It  may,  again,  result 
in  utter  disaster;  in  civil  war  or  prolonged  disorder  at 
home,  and  with  the  Hohenzollerns  in  Petrograd  restoring 
the  Romanoffs.  Most  likely  the  new  order  will,  in  spite 
of  friction  and  difficulty,  maintain  itself,  and  the  Rus- 
sian people  will  fight  on  with  the  more  resolution  as  they 
realize  the  more  clearly  that  this  war  is  the  war  of  their 
own  emancipation.  All  England  is  anxious  and  realizes 
the  risk.  But  we  take  the  risk  gladly.  I  confess  it  made 
me  proud  of  my  country  to  see  how  universal  was  the 
welcome  with  which  almost  all  classes  here  greeted  the 


PREFACE  ix 

revolution.   No  anxiety  about  our  own  fortunes  could 
check  that  immense  and  instinctive  outburst  of  happi- 


In  the  second  place,  America  has  entered  the  war.  I 
should  like  to  explain  why  I  rejoice  at  this  event,  which 
must  seem  to  many  of  my  American  friends  as,  at  best, 
a  grievous  necessity. 

America  has  come  in  most  reluctantly  and  with  ex- 
treme slowness.  That  is  natural.  She  hates  war  as  much 
as  England  does,  and  her  provocations  have  been  in- 
finitely less.  She  has  not  come  in  as  our  ally.  She  has 
come  in  to  repel  her  own  injuries.  We  have  certainly  no 
responsibility  for  dragging  her  into  the  war. 

But,  once  in,  she  must  needs  fight  at  our  side,  and 
thereby  create  some  new  national  memories  to  temper, 
if  not  to  obliterate,  those  of  the  past.  Her  two  wars 
against  England  will  be  matched  by  one  far  greater  war 
by  the  side  of  England.  To  me,  as  an  Englishman  who 
loves  America,  that  is  a  great  source  of  satisfaction.  Of 
course  we  cannot  tell  yet  what  sort  of  action  America 
means  to  take;  but  for  our  part  the  more  fully  and  gen- 
erously she  accepts  her  share  in  the  world's  burden  the 
better  the  result  will  be. 

But  there  is  something  else  at  stake  also.  This  war  is 
deciding  an  issue  more  momentous  than  any  duel  be- 
tween the  Entente  and  the  Central  Powers,  more  mo- 
mentous even  than  the  restoration  of  the  injured  nations. 
It  is  deciding  which  of  two  fundamental  principles  is  to 
rule  the  world  —  Democracy  or  Despotism,  Freedom  or 
Compulsion,  Consent  or  the  Power  of  the  Sword.  It 
would  have  been  surely  an  unspeakable  calamity  if,  in 
that  world-ordeal,  the  greatest  of  democratic  nations 


x  PREFACE 

had  stood  absolutely  aside,  not  helping  and,  what  is 
worse,  not  understanding.  That  calamity  is  now,  almost 
for  certain,  avoided.  America  will  still,  no  doubt,  remain 
somewhat  apart.  There  is  no  harm  in  that.  She  will 
not  have  to  learn  what  France  has  learned,  much  less 
what  Russia  has  learned.  She  will  not  even  have  to  face 
as  intimate  a  lesson  as  we  have  faced  in  Great  Britain. 
But,  while  her  soul  will  never  be  searched  as  ours  has 
been,  for  that  very  reason  her  balance  of  mind  may  be 
less  shaken,  and  that  is  a  quality  which  will  be  extremely 
welcome  at  the  Peace  Conference.  At  the  very  worst,  if 
the  issue  of  the  war  should  turn  against  this  island,  and 
the  burden  we  have  undertaken  prove  too  heavy  even 
for  our  colossal  strength,  we  shall  know  that  America, 
with  greater  strength  than  ours,  still  carries  on  the  great 
cause  to  which  we  were  faithful. 

I  do  not  profess  to  define  what  the  main  lesson  of  the 
war  will  prove  to  be.  The  message  is  burned  into  our 
hearts,  but  we  cannot  yet  read  the  characters  clearly. 
But  certainly  we  have  seen,  as  no  previous  generation 
has  seen,  the  extreme  clash  between  the  two  great  sys- 
tems which  have  hitherto  held  human  societies  together. 
We  have  seen,  I  trust,  convincingly,  the  evil  of  the  mil- 
itary form  of  State,  a  greater  and  more  degrading  evil 
than  we  ever  surmised.  It  has  turned  the  most  educated 
nation  of  Europe  into  a  nation  of  lost  souls.  But  only 
a  very  shallow  thinker  will  feel  satisfied  with  the  forms 
of  society  which  the  various  democratic  nations  have 
hitherto  opposed  to  it.  Neither  present  England  nor 
present  France  nor  present  America  is  a  commonwealth 
which  really  deserves  that  its  sons  should  die  for  it  as 
men  have  died  during  this  war.  Russia  is  different.  The 


PREFACE  a 

change  there  was  very  likely  worth  dying  for;  but  only 
because  of  its  promise,  not  its  accomplishment. 

We  have  none  of  us  done  our  duty  as  free  societies. 
We  have  oppressed  the  poor;  we  have  accepted  adver- 
tisement in  the  place  of  truth;  we  have  given  too  much 
power  to  money;' and  we  have  been  indifferent  to  the 
quality  of  human  character.  The  democracy  of  the 
future  must  be  a  great  deal  better  and  cleaner  than  any 
which  now  exists,  with  more  reverence,  more  discipline, 
more  love  of  beauty,  more  joy  in  life,  as  well  as  more 
social  justice  and  better  distribution  of  wealth,  more 
freedom  for  the  soul  and  more  friendliness  between  man 
and  man.  Towards  this  end,  however  dimly  seen  and 
distantly  followed,  all  the  nations  that  have  suffered  to- 
gether in  the  War  of  the  World's  Liberation  must  con- 
tribute, bringing  their  various  gifts.  Where  would  the 
cause  of  democracy  be  if  France  stood  aloof?  or  the 
new  Russia?  or  the  British  Commonwealth?  Or  where 
would  it  be  without  America?  The  best  result  that  I  ex- 
pect from  America's  entrance  into  the  war  is  not  that  she 
will  send  us  more  food  or  loans  or  munitions,  or  help  us 
against  submarines,  or  even  lighten  the  burden  of  the 
front  in  France;  but  that  in  the  upbuilding  of  democracy 
and  permanent  peace  throughout  the  world,  America 
and  Great  Britain  will  take  their  part  together,  united 
at  last  by  the  knowledge  that  they  stand  for  the  same 
causes,  by  a  common  danger  and  a  common  ordeal  and, 
I  will  venture  to  add,  a  common  consciousness  of  sin. 


CONTEXTS 

I.   First  Thoughts  on  the  War  (August.  1914)         3 

Printed  in  the  Hibbert  Journal,  October,  191-4. 
II.   How  can  War   ever   be  Right?  (Septem- 
ber. 1914; 20 

Printed  as  Oxford  Pamphlet  Xo.  IS. 

III.  Herd  Instinct  and  the  War  (February. 

1915) 46 

Lecture  at  Bedford  College.     Printed  in  the  At- 
lantic MontUy.  June.  1915. 

IV.  India  and  the  War  (March,  1915)    .       .       67 

Address  to  Indian  Students. 

V.    The    Evil   and    the    Good    of   the   War 

(October,  1915; 77 

Address  to  the  Congress  of  Free  Churches.   Printed 
in  the  Inquirer.  October  30,  1915. 

VI.    Democratic    Control    of  Foreign   Policy       93 

Printed  in  the  Contemporary  Review, February.  1916. 

VII.    How  vte  Stand  Now   (March.  1916)  .       .     114 
Address  to  the  Fight  for  Right  League. 

Vin.    Ireland 129 

I.    The  Dublin  Lu  arrection  (June,  1916 ) 
II.    The  Execution  of  Casement   (August 
3.  1916) 
III.    The  Future  of  Ireland  (March  18. 1917) 
IX.    America  and  the  War  (August,  1916)      .     154 

Printed  in  the  Westminster  Gazette. 


xiv  CONTENTS 

X.    America  and  England   (November,  1916)     171 

Address  to  the  Mayflower  Club,  November  14, 1'JIO. 

XI.    The  Sea  Policy  of  Great  Britain  (Octo- 
ber, 1916) 184 

Printed  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  December,  1916. 

XII.  Oxford  and  the  War  :  A  Memoir  of 
Arthur  George  Heath  (September, 
1916) 212 

Published  in  March,  1917. 

XIII.   The  Turmoil  of  War  (March,  1917)       .     235 

Address  to  the  Fight  for  Right  League,  March  4, 
1917. 


FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 


FAITH,  WAK,  AND  POLICY 


FIRST  THOUGHTS  ON  THE .  WAR  | 
(August,  1914) 


"Not  much  news:  Great  Britain  has  declared  war  on 
Austria.' '  The  words  fell  quite  simply,  and  with  no  in- 
tention of  irony,  from  the  lips  of  a  friend  of  mine  who 
picked  up  the  newspaper  on  the  day  when  I  began  to 
write  down  these  thoughts,  August  13.  So  amazingly  had 
the  world  changed  since  the  4th.  And  it  has  changed 
even  more  by  the  time  when  I  revise  the  proofs. 

During  the  month  of  July  and  earlier,  English  politics 
were  by  no  means  dull.  For  my  own  part,  my  mind  was 
profoundly  occupied  with  a  number  of  public  questions 
and  causes:  the  whole  maintenance  of  law  and  demo- 
cratic government  seemed  to  be  threatened,  not  to  speak 
of  social  reform  and  the  great  self-redeeming  movements 
of  the  working-class.  In  the  forefront  came  anxiety 
for  Home  Rule  and  the  Parliament  Act,  and  a  growing 
indignation  against  various  classes  of  " wreckers":  those 
reactionaries  who  seemed  to  be  playing  with  rebellion, 
playing  with  militarism,  recklessly  inflaming  the  party 
spirit  of  minorities  so  as  to  make  parliamentary  govern- 
ment impossible ;  those  revolutionaries  who  were  openly 
preaching  the  Class  War  and  urging  the  working-man 


4  FAITH,  WAR,  AND   POLICY 

to  mistrust  his  own  leaders  and  representatives  and 
believe  in  nothing  but  some  helpless  gospel  of  hate. 

And  now  that  is  all  swept  away.  We  think  no  more 
of  our  great  causes,  and  we  think  no  more  of  our  mutual 
hatreds.  Good  and  evil  come  together.  Our  higher  ideals 
are  forgotten,  but  we  are  a  band  of  brothers  standing 
side  by  side. 

This  is  a  great  thing.  The  fine,  instinctive  generosity 
with  which  the  House  of  Commons,  from  Mr.  Bonar 
Law  to  Mr.  Redmond,  rose  to  the  crisis  has  spread  an 
impulse  over  the  country.  There  is  a  bond  of  fellowship 
between  Englishmen  who  before  had  no  meeting-ground. 
In  time  past  I  have  sometimes  envied  the  working-men 
who  can  simply  hail  a  stranger  as  "mate":  we  dons  and 
men  of  letters  seem  in  ordinary  times  to  have  no  "  mates  " 
and  no  gift  for  getting  them.  But  the  ice  between  man 
and  man  is  broken  now. 

I  think,  too,  that  the  feeling  between  different  classes 
must  have  softened.  Rich  business  men,  whom  I  can 
remember  a  short  time  ago  tediously  eloquent  on  the 
vices  of  trades-unionists  and  of  the  working-classes  in 
general,  are  now  instantly  and  without  hesitation  mak- 
ing large  sacrifices  and  facing  heavy  risks  to  see  that  as 
few  men  as  possible  shall  be  thrown  out  of  work,  and 
that  no  women  and  children  shall  starve.  And  working- 
men  who  have  not  money  to  give  are  giving  more  than 
money,  and  giving  it  without  question  or  grudge.  Thank 
God,  we  did  not  hate  each  other  as  much  as  we  imagined; 
or  else,  while  the  hatred  was  real  enough  on  the  surface, 
at  the  back  of  our  minds  we  loved  each  other  more. 

And  the  band  of  brothers  is  greater  and  wider  than 
any  of  us  dared  to  believe.  Many  English  hearts  must 
have  swelled  with  almost  incredulous  gratitude  to  hear 


FIRST  THOUGHTS  ON   THE  WAR  5 

of  the  messages  and  the  gifts  which  come  flooding  in 
from  all  the  dominions  overseas :  the  gold,  the  grain,  the 
sugar,  the  tobacco ;  its  special  produce  coming  from  each 
State,  and  from  all  of  them  throngs  of  young  men  offer- 
ing their  strength  and  their  life-blood.  And  India  above 
all!  One  who  has  cared  much  about  India  and  has 
friends  among  Indian  Nationalists  cannot  read  with  dry 
eyes  the  messages  that  come  from  all  races  and  creeds  of 
India,  from  Hindu  and  Moslem  societies,  from  princes 
and  holy  men  and  even  political  exiles.  .  .  .  We  have 
not  always  been  sympathetic  in  our  government  of  India ; 
we  have  not  always  been  wise.  But  we  have  tried  to  be 
just;  and  we  have  given  to  India  the  best  work  of  our 
best  men.  It  would  have  been  hard  on  us  if  India  had 
shown  no  loyalty  at  all;  but  she  has  given  us  more  than 
we  deserved,  more  than  we  should  have  dared  to  claim. 
Neither  Indian  nor  Englishman  can  forget  it. 

II 

And  there  is  something  else.  Travellers  who  have 
returned  from  France  or  Belgium  —  or  Germany  for 
that  matter  —  tell  us  of  the  unhesitating  heroism  with 
which  the  ordinary  men  and  women  are  giving  them- 
selves to  the  cause  of  their  nation.  A  friend  of  mine  heard 
the  words  of  one  Frenchwoman  to  another  who  was  see- 
ing her  husband's  train  off  to  the  front:  "Ne  pleurez  pas, 
il  vous  voit  encore"  When  he  was  out  of  sight  the  tears 
might  come !  .  .  .  Not  thousands  but  millions  of  women 
are  saying  words  like  that  to  themselves,  and  millions  of 
men  going  out  to  face  death. 

We  in  England  have  not  yet  been  put  to  the  same 
tests  as  France  and  Belgium.  We  are  in  the  flush  of  our 


6  FAITH,  WAR,  AND   POLICY 

first  emotion ;  we  have  not  yet  had  our  nerves  shaken  by 
advancing  armies,  or  our  endurance  ground  down  by 
financial  distress.  But,  as  far  as  I  can  judge  of  the  feel- 
ings of  people  whom  I  meet,  they  seem  to  me  to  be  ready 
to  answer  any  call  that  comes.  We  ask  for  200,000  re- 
cruits and  receive  300,000,  for  half  a  million  and  we 
receive  three  quarters.  We  ask  for  more  still,  and  the 
recruiting  offices  are  overflowing.  They  cannot  cope 
with  the  crowds  of  young  men  who  cheerfully  wait  their 
turn  at  the  office  doors  or  on  the  pavement,  while  fierce 
old  gentlemen  continue  to  scold  them  in  the  newspapers. 
Certainly  we  are  a  quaint  people. 

And  in  the  field!  A  non-combatant  stands  humbled 
before  the  wonderful  story  of  the  retreat  from  Mons  — 
the  gallantry,  the  splendid  skill,  the  mutual  confidence 
of  all  ranks,  the  absolute  faithfulness.  One  hardly  dares 
praise  such  deeds;  one  admires  them  in  silence.  And  it 
is  not  the  worshippers  of  war  who  have  done  this;  it  is 
we,  the  good-natured,  unmilitarist,  ultra-liberal  people, 
the  nation  of  humanitarians  and  shopkeepers. 

Our  army,  indeed,  is  a  professional  army.  What  the 
French  and  the  Belgians  have  done  is  an  even  more 
significant  fact  for  civilization.  It  shows  that  the  cul- 
tured, progressive,  easy-living,  peace-loving  nations  of 
western  Europe  are  not  corrupted,  at  least  as  far  as 
courage  goes.  The  world  has  just  seen  them,  bourgeois 
and  working-men,  clerks,  schoolmasters,  musicians,  gro- 
cers, ready  in  a  moment  when  the  call  came;  able  to 
march  and  fight  for  long  days  of  scorching  sun  or  icy 
rain;  willing,  if  need  be,  to  die  for  their  homes  and 
countries,  with  no  panic,  no  softening  of  the  fibre  .  .  . 
resolute  to  face  death  and  to  kill. 


FIRST  THOUGHTS  ON   THE  WAR  7 

III 

For  there  is  that  side  of  it  too.  We  have  now  not  only 
to  strain  every  nerve  to  help  our  friend — we  must  strain 
every  nerve  also  to  injure  our  enemy.  This  is  horrible, 
but  we  must  try  to  face  the  truth.  For  my  own  part, 
I  find  that  I  do  desperately  desire  to  hear  of  German 
dreadnoughts  sunk  in  the  North  Sea.  Mines  are  treach- 
erous engines  of  death;  but  I  should  be  only  too  glad  to 
help  to  lay  one  for  them.  When  I  see  that  20,000  Ger- 
mans have  been  killed  in  such-and-such  an  engagement, 
and  next  day  that  it  was  only  2000,  I  am  sorry. 

That  is  where  we  are.  We  are  fighting  for  that  which 
we  love,  whatever  we  call  it.  It  is  the  Right,  but  it  is 
something  even  more  than  the  Right.  For  our  lives,  for 
England,  for  the  liberty  of  western  Europe,  for  the  possi- 
bility of  peace  and  friendship  between  nations;  for  some- 
thing which  we  should  rather  die  than  lose.  And  lose  it 
we  shall  unless  we  can  beat  the  Germans. 


IV 

Yet  I  have  scarcely  met  a  single  person  who  seems  to 
hate  the  Germans.  We  abominate  their  dishonest  Gov- 
ernment, their  unscrupulous  and  arrogant  diplomacy, 
the  whole  spirit  of  "blood-and-iron"  ambition  which 
seems  to  have  spread  from  Prussia  through  a  great  part 
of  the  nation.  But  not  the  people  in  general.  They,  too, 
by  whatever  criminal  folly  they  were  led  into  war,  are 
fighting  now  for  what  they  call  "the  Right."  For  their 
lives  and  homes  and  their  national  pride,  for  that 
strange  "Culture,"  that  idol  of  blood  and  clay  and  true 
gold,  which  they  have  built  up  with  so  many  tears. 


8  FAITH,  WAR,  AND   POLICY 

They  have  been  trebly  deceived;  deceived  by  their  Gov- 
ernment, deceived  by  their  own  idolatry,  deceived  by 
their  sheer  terror.  They  are  ringed  about  by  enemies; 
their  one  ally  is  broken;  they  hear  the  thunder  of  Cos- 
sack hoofs  in  the  east  coming  ever  closer;  and  hordes  of 
stupid  moujiks  behind  them,  innumerable,  clumsy,  bar- 
barous, as  they  imagine  in  their  shuddering  dread,  tread- 
ing down  the  beloved  Fatherland  as  they  come.  .  .  . 
What  do  Germans  care  for  punctilios  and  neutrality 
treaties  in  the  face  of  such  a  horror  as  that? 

No:  we  cannot  hate  or  blame  the  people  in  general. 
And  certainly  not  the  individual  Germans  whom  we 
know.  I  have  just  by  me  a  letter  from  young  Fritz 
Hackmann,  who  was  in  Oxford  last  term  and  brought 
me  an  introduction  from  a  Greek  scholar  in  Berlin:  a 
charming  letter,  full  of  gratitude  for  the  very  small 
friendlinesses  I  had  been  able  to  show  him.  I  remember 
his  sunny  smile  and  his  bow  with  a  click  of  the  heels.  He 
is  now  fighting  us.  .  .  .  And  there  is  Paul  Maass,  too,  a 
young  Doctor  of  Philosophy,  recently  married.  He  sent 
me  a  short  time  back  the  photograph  of  his  baby,  Ulf, 
and  we  exchanged  small  jokes  about  Ulf's  look  of 
wisdom  and  his  knowledge  of  Greek  and  his  imperious 
habits.  And  now  of  course  Maass  is  with  his  regiment 
and  we  shall  do  our  best  to  kill  him,  and  after  that  to 
starve  Ulf  and  Ulf's  mother. 

It  is  well  for  us  to  remember  what  war  means  when 
reduced  to  terms  of  private  human  life.  Doubtless  we 
have  most  of  us  met  disagreeable  Germans  and  been 
angry  with  them;  but  I  doubt  if  we  ever  wanted  to  cut 
their  throats  or  blow  them  to  pieces  with  lyddite.  And 
many  thousands  of  us  have  German  friends,  or  have 
come  across  good  straight  Germans  in  business,  or  have 


FIRST  THOUGHTS  ON  THE  WAR  9 

carried  on  smiling  and  incompetent  conversations  with 
kindly  German  peasants  on  walking  tours.*  We  must  re- 
member such  things  as  these,  and  not  hate  the  Germans. 

"A  little  later  it  may  be  different.  In  a  few  weeks 
English  and  Germans  will  have  done  each  other  cruel 
and  irreparable  wrongs.  The  blood  of  those  we  love  will 
lie  between  us.  We  shall  hear  stories  of  horrible  suffering. 
Atrocities  will  be  committed  by  a  few  bad  or  stupid  peo- 
ple on  both  sides,  and  will  be  published  and  distorted 
and  magnified.  It  will  be  hard  to  avoid  hatred  then; 
so  it  is  well  to  try  to  think  things  out  while  our  minds 
are  still  clear,  while  we  still  hate  the  war  and  not  the 
enemy." 

So  I  wrote  three  weeks  ago.  By  the  time  I  revise  these 
lines  the  prophecy  has  been  more  than  fulfilled.  No 
one  had  anticipated  then  that  the  nightmare  doctrines 
of  Bismarck  and  Nietzsche  and  Bernhardi  would  be 
actually  enforced  by  official  orders.  "Cause  to  non- 
combatants  the  maximum  of  suffering :  leave  the  women 
and  children  nothing  but  their  eyes  to  weep  with.  .  . ." 
We  thought  they  said  these  things  just  to  startle  and 
shock  us;  and  it  now  appears  that  some  of  them  meant 
what  they  said.  .  .  .  Still  we  must  not  hate  the  German 
people.  Who  knows  how  many  secret  acts  of  mercy, 
mercy  at  risk  of  life  and  against  orders,  were  done  at 
Louvain  and  Dinant?  Germans  are  not  demons;  they 
are  naturally  fine  and  good  people.  And  they  will  wake 
from  their  evil  dream. 


"Never  again!"  I  see  that  a  well-known  imperialist 
writes  to  the  papers  saying  that  these  words  should  be 
embroidered  on  the  kit-bags  of  the  Royal  Navy  and 


10  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

painted  on  the  knapsacks  of  all  our  soldiers.  The  aspira- 
tion is  perhaps  too  bold,  for  "Never"  is  a  very  large 
word ;  but  I  believe  it  is  the  real  aspiration  of  most  civil- 
ized men,  certainly  of  most  Englishmen.  We  are  fighting 
for  our  national  life,  for  our  ideals  of  freedom  and  honest 
government  and  fair  dealing  between  nations :  but  most 
men,  if  asked  what  they  would  like  to  attain  at  the  end 
of  this  war,  if  it  is  successful,  would  probably  agree  in 
their  answer.  We  seek  no  territory,  no  aggrandizement, 
no  revenge;  we  only  want  to  be  safe  from  the  recurrence 
of  this  present  horror.  We  want  permanent  peace  for 
Europe  and  freedom  for  each  nation. 

Wriat  is  the  way  to  attain  it?  The  writer  whom  I  have 
quoted  goes  on:  "The  war  must  not  end  until  German 
warships  are  sunk,  her  fortresses  razed  to  the  ground, 
her  army  disbanded,  her  munitions  destroyed,  and  the 
military  and  civil  bureaucrats  responsible  for  opening 
hell  gates  are  shot  or  exiled."  As  if  that  would  bring  us 
any  nearer  to  a  permanent  peace!  Crushing  Germany 
would  do  no  good.  It  would  point  straight  towards  a 
war  of  revenge.  It  is  not  Germany,  it  is  a  system,  that 
needs  crushing.  Other  nations  before  Germany  have 
menaced  the  peace  of  Europe,  and  other  nations  will  do 
so  again  after  Germany,  if  the  system  remains  the  same. 

VI 

It  is  interesting  to  look  back  at  the  records  of  the 
Congress  of  Vienna  in  1815,  at  the  end  of  the  last  great 
war  of  allied  Europe  against  a  military  despotism. 

It  was  hoped  then,  a  standard  historian  tells  us,  "that 
so  great  an  opportunity  would  not  be  lost,  but  that  the 
statesmen  would  initiate  such  measures  of  international 


FIRST  THOUGHTS  ON  THE  WAR  11 

disarmament  as  would  perpetuate  the  blessings  of  that 
peace  which  Europe  was  enjoying  after  twenty  years  of 
warfare."  Certain  Powers  wished  to  use  the  occasion  for 
crushing  and  humiliating  France;  but  fortunately  they 
did  not  carry  the  Congress  with  them.  Talleyrand  per- 
suaded the  Congress  to  accept  the  view  that  the  recent 
wars  had  not  been  wars  of  nations,  but  of  principles.  It 
had  not  been  Austria,  Russia,  Prussia,  England,  against 
France;  it  had  been  the  principle  of  legitimacy  against  all 
that  was  illegitimate,  treaty-breaking,  revolution,  usur- 
pation. Bonapartism  was  to  be  destroyed;  France  was 
not  to  be  injured. 

Castlereagh,  the  English  representative,  concentrated 
his  efforts  upon  two  great  objects.  The  first,  which  he 
just  failed  to  obtain,  owing  chiefly  to  difficulties  about 
Turkey,  was  a  really  effective  and  fully  armed  Concert 
of  Europe.  He  wished  for  a  united  guarantee  from  all 
the  Powers  that  they  would  accept  the  settlement  made 
by  the  Congress  and  would,  in  future,  wage  collective 
war  against  the  first  breaker  of  the  peace.  The  second 
object,  which  he  succeeded  in  gaining,  was,  curiously 
enough,  an  international  declaration  of  the  abolition  of 
the  slave  trade. 

The  principle  of  legitimacy  —  of  ordinary  law  and 
right  and  custom  —  as  against  lawless  ambition :  a  Con- 
cert of  Powers  pledged  by  collective  treaty  to  maintain 
and  enforce  peace ;  and  the  abolition  of  the  slave  trade ! 
It  sounds  like  the  scheme  of  some  new  Utopia,  and  it 
was  really  a  main  part  of  the  political  programme  of 
the  leaders  of  the  Congress  of  Vienna  —  of  Castlereagh, 
Metternich,  Talleyrand,  Alexander  of  Russia,  and 
Frederick  William  of  Prussia.  .  .  .  They  are  not  names 
to  rouse  enthusiasm  nowadays.   All  except  Talleyrand 


12  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

were  confessed  enemies  of  freedom  and  enlightenment 
and  almost  everything  that  we  regard  as  progressive;  and 
Talleyrand,  though  occasionally  on  the  right  side  in  such 
matters,  was  not  a  person  to  inspire  confidence.  Yet, 
after  all,  they  were  more  or  less  reasonable  human  beings, 
and  a  bitter  experience  had  educated  them.  Doubtless 
they  blundered;  they  went  on  all  kinds  of  wrong  princi- 
ples; they  based  their  partition  of  Europe  on  what  they 
called  " legitimacy,"  a  perfectly  artificial  and  false 
legitimacy,  rather  than  nationality;  they  loathed  and 
dreaded  popular  movements;  they  could  not  quite  keep 
their  hands  from  a  certain  amount  of  picking  and  steal- 
ing. Yet,  on  the  whole,  we  find  these  men  at  the  end  of 
the  Great  War  fixing  their  minds  not  on  glory  and  pres- 
tige and  revenge,  not  on  conventions  and  shams,  but  on 
ideals  so  great  and  true  and  humane  and  simple  that 
most  Englishmen  in  ordinary  life  are  ashamed  of  men- 
tioning them;  trying  hard  to  make  peace  permanent  on 
the  basis  of  what  was  recognized  as  " legitimate"  or  fair; 
and,  amid  many  differences,  agreeing  at  least  in  the  uni- 
versal abolition  of  the  slave  trade. 


VII 

Our  next  conference  of  Europe  ought  to  do  far  better 
if  only  we  can  be  sure  that  it  will  meet  in  the  same  high 
spirit.  Instead  of  Castlereagh,  we  shall  send  from  Eng- 
land some  one  like  Mr.  Asquith  or  Sir  Edward  Grey,  with 
ten  times  more  progressive  and  liberal  feeling  and  ten 
times  more  insight  and  understanding.  Even  suppose  we 
send  a  Conservative,  Mr.  Balfour  or  Lord  Lansdowne, 
the  advance  upon  Castlereagh  will  be  almost  as  great. 
Instead  of  Talleyrand,  France  will  send  one  of  her  many 


FIRST  THOUGHTS  ON  THE  WAR  13 

able  republican  leaders,  from  Clemenceau  to  Delcasse*, 
certainly  more  honest  and  humane  than  Talleyrand. 
And  Germany  —  who  can  say?  Except  that  it  may  be 
some  one  very  different  from  these  militarist  schemers 
who  have  brought  their  country  to  ruin.  In  any  case  it 
is  likely  to  be  a  wiser  man  than  Frederick  William,  just 
as  Russia  is  bound  to  send  a  wiser  man  than  Alexander. 

And  behind  these  representatives  there  will  be  a 
deeper  and  far  more  intelligent  feeling  in  the  various 
peoples.  In  1815  the  nations  were  sick  of  war  after 
long  fighting.  I  doubt  if  there  was  any  widespread 
conviction  that  war  was  in  itself  an  abomination  and 
an  outrage  on  humanity.  Philosophers  felt  it,  some 
inarticulate  women  and  peasants  and  workmen  felt  it. 
But  now  such  a  feeling  is  amost  universal.  It  commands 
a  majority  in  any  third-class  railway  carriage;  it  is  ex- 
pressed almost  as  a  matter  of  course  in  the  average 
newspaper. 

Between  Waterloo  and  the  present  day  there  has 
passed  one  of  the  greatest  and  most  swiftly  progressive 
centuries  of  all  human  history,  and  the  heart  of  Europe 
is  really  changed.  I  do  not  say  we  shall  not  have  Jingo 
crowds  or  that  our  own  hearts  will  not  thrill  with  the 
various  emotions  of  war,  whether  base  or  noble.  But 
there  is  a  change.  Ideas  that  once  belonged  to  a  few 
philosophers  have  sunk  into  common  men's  minds;  Tol- 
stoy has  taught  us,  the  intimate  records  of  modern  wars 
have  taught  us,  free  intercourse  with  foreigners  has  edu- 
cated us,  even  the  illustrated  papers  have  made  us  real- 
ize things.  In  1914  it  is  not  that  we  happen  to  be  sick  of 
war;  it  is  that  we  mean  to  extirpate  war  out  of  the  nor- 
mal possibilities  of  civilized  life,  as  we  have  extirpated 
leprosy  and  typhus. 


14  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

VIII 

What  kind  of  settlement  can  we  hope  to  attain  at  the 
end  of  it  all? 

The  question  is  still  far  off,  and  may  have  assumed 
astonishingly  different  shapes  by  the  time  we  reach  it, 
but  it  is  perhaps  well  to  try,  now  while  we  are  calm  and 
unhurt,  to  think  out  what  we  would  most  desire. 

First  of  all,  no  revenge,  no  deliberate  humiliation  of 
any  enemy,  no  picking  and  stealing. 

Next,  a  drastic  resettlement  of  all  those  burning 
problems  which  carry  in  them  the  seeds  of  European 
war,  especially  the  problems  of  territory.  Many  of  the 
details  will  be  very  difficult;  some  may  prove  insoluble. 
But  in  general  we  must  try  to  arrange,  even  at  consid- 
erable cost,  that  territory  goes  with  nationality.  The 
annexation  of  Alsace-Lorraine  has  disturbed  the  west 
of  Europe  for  forty  years;  the  wrong  distributions  of 
territory  in  the  Balkan  peninsula  have  kept  the  spark 
of  war  constantly  alive  in  the  East,  and  have  not  been 
fully  corrected  by  the  last  Balkan  settlement.  Every 
nation  which  sees  a  slice  of  itself  cut  off  and  held  under 
foreign  rule  is  a  danger  to  peace,  and  so  is  every  nation 
that  holds  by  force  or  fraud  an  alien  province.  At  this 
moment,  if  Austria  had  not  annexed  some  millions  of 
Serbians  in  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina  she  would  have  no 
mortal  quarrel  with  Serbia.  Any  drastic  rearrangement 
of  this  sort  will  probably  involve  the  break-up  of  Austria, 
a  larger  Italy,  a  larger  Serbia,  a  larger  Germany  —  for 
the  loss  of  Alsace-Lorraine,  of  Danish  Schleswig,  and 
the  Polish  provinces  would  be  more  than  compensated 
by  the  accession  of  the  Germanic  parts  of  Austria  — 
and  a  larger  Russia.  But  it  is  not  big  nations  that  are 


FIRST  THOUGHTS  ON  THE  WAR  15 

a  menace  to  peace;  it  is  nations  with  a  grievance  or  na- 
tions who  know  that  others  have  a  grievance  against 
them. 

And  shall  we  try  again  to  achieve  Castlereagh's  and 
Alexander's  ideal  of  a  permanent  Concert,  pledged  to 
make  collective  war  upon  the  peace-breaker?  Surely  we 
must.  We  must  at  all  costs  and  in  spite  of  all  difficul- 
ties, because  the  alternative  means  such  unspeakable 
failure.  We  must  learn  to  agree,  we  civilized  nations  of 
Europe,  or  else  we  must  perish.  I  believe  that  the  chief 
counsel  of  wisdom  here  is  to  be  sure  to  go  far  enough. 
We  need  a  permanent  Concert,  perhaps  a  permanent 
Common  Council,  in  which  every  awkward  problem  can 
be  dealt  with  before  it  has  time  to  grow  dangerous,  and 
in  which  outvoted  minorities  must  accustom  themselves 
to  giving  way.  If  we  examine  the  failures  of  the  Euro- 
pean Concert  in  recent  years  we  shall  find  them  generally 
due  to  two  large  causes.  Either  some  Powers  came  into 
the  council  with  unclean  hands,  determined  to  grab 
alien  territory  or  fatally  compromised  because  they  had 
grabbed  it  in  the  past;  or  else  they  met  too  late,  when 
the  air  was  full  of  mistrust,  and  not  to  yield  had  become 
a  point  of  honour.  Once  make  certain  of  good  faith  and 
a  clean  start,  and  surely  there  is  in  the  great  Powers  of 
Europe  sufficient  unity  of  view  and  feeling  about  funda- 
mental matters  to  make  it  possible  for  them  to  work 
honestly  together  —  at  any  rate,  when  the  alternative 
is  stark  ruin.  ...  It  is  well  to  remember  that  in  this 
matter,  from  Alexander  I  onward,  Russia  has  steadily 
done  her  best  to  lead  the  way. 

And  the  abolition  of  the  slave  trade!  It  is  wonder- 
ful to  think  that  that  was  not  only  talked  about  but 
really  achieved ;  the  greatest  abomination  in  the  world . 


16  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

definitely  killed,  finished  and  buried,  never  to  return, 
as  a  result  of  the  meeting  of  the  Powers  at  the  end  of 
the  Great  War.  What  can  we  hope  for  to  equal  that? 
The  limitation  of  armaments  seems  almost  small  in 
comparison. 

We  saw  in  the  first  week  of  the  war  what  a  nation 
and  a  government  can  do  when  the  need  or  the  oppor- 
tunity comes.  Armies  and  fleets  mobilized,  war  risks 
assured,  railways  taken  over,  prices  fixed  .  .  .  things  that 
seemed  almost  impossible  accomplished  successfully  in 
a  few  days.  One  sentence  in  Mr.  Lloyd  George's  speech 
on  the  financial  situation  ran  thus,  if  I  remember  the 
words:  "This  part  of  the  subject  presents  some  peculiar 
difficulties,  but  I  have  no  doubt  they  will  be  surmounted 
with  the  utmost  ease."  That  is  the  spirit  in  which  our 
Government  has  risen  to  its  crisis,  a  spirit  not  of  shallow 
optimism,  but  of  that  active  and  hard-thinking  confi- 
dence which  creates  its  own  fulfilment.  The  power  of 
man  over  circumstance  is  now  —  even  now  in  the  midst 
of  this  one  terrific  failure  —  immeasurably  greater  than 
it  has  ever  yet  been  in  history.  Every  year  that  passes 
has  shown  its  increase.  When  the  next  settling  day 
comes  the  real  will  of  reasonable  man  should  be  able  to 
assert  itself  and  achieve  its  end  with  a  completeness  not 
conceivable  in  1815. 


IX 

This  is  not  the  time  to  make  any  definite  proposals. 
Civilization  has  still  many  slave  trades  to  abolish.  The 
trade  in  armaments  is  perhaps  the  most  oppressive  of 
all,  but  there  are  others  also,  slave  trades  social  and  in- 
timate and  international ;  no  one  can  tell  yet  which  ones 


FIRST  THOUGHTS  ON  THE  WAR  17 

and  how  many  it  may  be  possible  to  overthrow.  But 
there  is  one  thing  that  we  must  see.  This  war  and  the 
national  aspiration  behind  the  war  must  not  be  allowed 
to  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  militarists.  I  do  not  say  that 
we  must  not  be  ready  for  some  form  of  universal  service : 
that  will  depend  on  the  circumstances  in  which  the  war 
leaves  us.  But  we  must  not  be  militarized  in  mind  and 
feeling;  we  must  keep  our  politics  British  and  not  Prus- 
sian. That  is  the  danger.  It  is  the  danger  in  every  war. 
In  time  of  war  every  interest,  every  passion,  tends  to  be 
concentrated  on  the  mere  fighting,  the  gaining  of  ad- 
vantages, the  persistent  use  of  cunning  and  force.  An 
atmosphere  tends  to  grow  up  in  which  the  militarist  and 
the  schemer  are  at  home  and  the  liberal  and  democrat 
homeless. 

There  are  many  thousands  of  social  reformers  and 
radicals  in  this  country  who  instinctively  loathe  war, 
and  have  been  convinced  only  with  the  utmost  reluc- 
tance, if  at  all,  of  the  necessity  of  our  fighting.  The 
danger  is  that  these  people,  containing  among  them 
some  of  our  best  guides  and  most  helpful  political  think- 
ers, may  from  disgust  and  discouragement  fall  into  the 
background  and  leave  public  opinion  to  the  mercy  of  our 
own  Von  Tirpitzes  and  Bernhardis.  That  would  be  the 
last  culminating  disaster.  It  would  mean  that  the  war 
had  ceased  to  be  a  war  for  free  Europe  against  militarism, 
and  had  become  merely  one  of  the  ordinary  sordid  and 
bloody  struggles  of  nation  against  nation,  one  link  in  the 
insane  chain  of  wrongs  that  lead  ever  to  worse  wrongs. 

One  may  well  be  thankful  that  the  strongest  of  the 
neutral  Powers  is  guided  by  a  leader  so  wise  and  upright 
and  temperate  as  President  Wilson.  One  may  be  thank- 
ful, too,  that  both  here  and  in  France  we  have  in  power 


18  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

not  only  a  very  able  Ministry,  but  a  strongly  Liberal  and 
peace-loving  Ministry.  In  the  first  place,  it  unites  the 
country  far  more  effectively  than  any  Ministry  which 
could  be  suspected  of  Jingoism.  In  the  second  place,  it 
gives  us  a  chance  of  a  permanent  settlement,  based  on 
wisdom  and  not  on  ambition.  It  is  fortunate  also  that 
in  Russia  the  more  liberal  elements  in  the  Government 
seem  to  be  predominant.  Some  English  Liberals  seem 
to  be  sorry  and  half  ashamed  that  we  have  Russia  as  an 
ally;  for  my  own  part  I  am  glad  and  proud.  Not  only  be- 
cause of  her  splendid  military  achievements,  but  because, 
so  far  as  I  can  read  the  signs  of  such  things,  there  is  in 
Russia,  more  than  in  other  nations,  a  vast  untapped 
reservoir  of  spiritual  power,  of  idealism,  of  striving  for 
a  nobler  life.  And  that  is  what  Europe  will  most  need  at 
the  end  of  this  bitter  material  struggle.  I  am  proud  to 
think  that  the  liberal  and  progressive  elements  in  Russia 
are  looking  towards  England  and  feeling  strengthened 
by  English  friendship.  "This  is  for  us,"  said  a  great 
Russian  Liberal  to  me  some  days  ago,  —  "this  is  for  us 
a  Befreiungskrieg  (war  of  liberation).  After  this,  re- 
action is  impossible."  We  are  fighting  not  only  to  de- 
fend Russian  governors  and  Russian  peasants  against 
German  invasion,  but  also,  and  perhaps  even  more  pro- 
foundly, to  enable  the  Russia  of  Turgenieff  and  Tolstoy, 
the  Russia  of  many  artists  and  many  martyrs,  to  work 
out  its  destiny  and  its  freedom.  If  the  true  Russia  has 
a  powerful  voice  in  the  final  settlement  it  will  be  a  great 
thing  for  humanity. 

Of  course,  all  these  hopes  may  be  shattered  and  made 
ridiculous  before  the  settlement  comes.  They  would  be 
shattered,  probably,  by  a  German  victory;  not  because 
Germans  are  wicked,  but  because  a  German  victory  at 


FIRST  THOUGHTS  ON  THE  WAR  19 

the  present  time  would  mean  a  victory  for  blood-and- 
iron. They  would  be  shattered,  certainly,  if  in  each  sep- 
arate country  the  liberal  forces  abandoned  the  situation 
to  the  reactionaries,  and  stood  aside  while  the  nation  fell 
into  that  embitterment  and  brutalization  of  feeling 
which  is  the  natural  consequence  of  a  long  war. 

To  prevent  the  first  of  these  perils  is  the  work  of  our 
armies  and  navies;  to  prevent  the  second  should  be  the 
work  of  all  thoughtful  non-combatants.  It  may  be  a 
difficult  task,  but  at  least  it  is  not  hideous;  and  some  of 
the  work  that  we  must  do  is.  So  hideous,  indeed,  that 
at  times  it  seems  strange  that  we  can  carry  it  out  at  all 
—  this  war  of  civilized  men  against  civilized  men,  against 
our  intellectual  teachers,  our  brothers  in  art  and  science 
and  healing  medicine,  and  so  large  a  part  of  all  that 
makes  life  beautiful.  When  we  remember  all  this  it 
makes  us  feel  lost  and  heavy-hearted,  like  men  struggling 
and  unable  to  move  in  an  evil  dream.  .  .  .  So,  it  seems, 
for  the  time  being  we  must  forget  it.  We  modern  men 
are  accustomed  by  the  needs  of  life  to  this  division  of 
feelings.  In  every  war,  in  every  competition  almost, 
there  is  something  of  the  same  difficulty,  and  we  have 
learned  to  keep  the  two  sides  of  our  mind  apart.  We 
must  fight  our  hardest,  indomitably,  gallantly,  even 
joyously,  forgetting  all  else  while  we  have  to  fight.  WTien 
the  fight  is  over  we  must  remember. 


II ' 

HOW  CAN  WAR  EVER  BE  RIGHT? 

(September,  1914) 

I  have  all  my  life  been  an  advocate  of  Peace.  I  hate 
war,  not  merely  for  its  own  cruelty  and  folly,  but  because 
it  is  the  enemy  of  all  the  causes  that  I  care  for  most,  of 
social  progress  and  good  government  and  all  friendliness 
and  gentleness  of  life,  as  well  as  of  art  and  learning  and 
literature.  I  have  spoken  and  presided  at  more  meetings 
than  I  can  remember  for  peace  and  arbitration  and  the 
promotion  of  international  friendship.  I  opposed  the 
policy  of  war  in  South  Africa  with  all  my  energies,  and 
have  been  either  outspokenly  hostile  or  inwardly  un- 
sympathetic towards  almost  every  war  that  Great 
Britain  has  waged  in  my  lifetime.  If  I  may  speak  more 
personally,  there  is  none  of  my  own  work  into  which  I 
have  put  more  intense  feeling  than  into  my  translation 
of  Euripides'  "Trojan  Women,"  the  first  great  denuncia- 
tion of  war  in  European  literature.  I  do  not  regret  any 
word  that  I  have  spoken  or  written  in  the  cause  of  Peace, 
nor  have  I  changed,  so  far  as  I  know,  any  opinion  that 

1 1  have  previously  held  on  this  subject.  Yet  I  believe 
firmly  that  we  were  right  to  declare  war  against  Ger- 
many on  August  4,  1914,  and  that  to  have  remained 
neutral  in  that  crisis  would  have  been  a  failure  in  public 

.  duty. 

A  heavy  responsibility  —  there  is  no  doubt  of  it  — 

.  lies  upon  Great  Britain.  Our  allies,  France  and  Russia, 


HOW  CAN  WAR  EVER  BE  RIGHT?  21 

•Belgium  and  Serbia,  had  no  choice;  the  war  was,  in 
various  degrees,  forced  on  all  of  them.  We  only,  after 
deliberately  surveying  the  situation,  when  Germany 
would  have  preferred  for  the  moment  not  to  fight  us,  of 

■  our  free  will  declared  war.  And  we  were  right. 

•  How  can  such  a  thing  be?  It  is  easy  enough  to  see 
that  our  cause  is  right,  and  the  German  cause,  by  all 
ordinary  human  standards,  desperately  wrong.  It  is 
hardly  possible  to  study  the  official  papers  issued  by  the 
British,  the  German,  and  the  Russian  Governments, 
without  seeing  that  Germany  —  or  some  party  in  Ger- 
many —  had  plotted  this  war  beforehand;  that  she  chose 
a  moment  when  she  thought  her  neighbours  were  at  a 
disadvantage;  that  she  prevented  Austria  from  making 
a  settlement  even  at  the  last  moment;  that  in  order  to 
get  more  quickly  at  France  she  violated  her  treaty  with 
Belgium.  Evidence  too  strong  to  resist  seems  to  show 
that  she  has  carried  out  the  violation  with  a  purposeful 
cruelty  that  has  no  parallel  in  the  wars  of  modern  and 

•  civilized  nations.  Yet  some  people  may  still  feel  gravely 
doubtful.  Germany's  ill-doing  is  no  reason  for  us  to  do 
likewise.  We  did  our  best  to  keep  the  general  peace; 
there  we  were  right.  We  failed;  the  German  Govern- 
ment made  war  in  spite  of  us.  There  we  were  unfortu- 
nate. It  was  a  war  already  on  an  enormous  scale,  a  vast 
network  of  calamity  ranging  over  five  nations;  and  we 
decided  to  make  it  larger  still.  There  we  were  wrong. 
Could  we  not  have  stood  aside,  as  the  United  States 
stand,  ready  to  help  refugees  and  sufferers,  anxious  to 
heal  wounds  and  not  make  them,  watchful  for  the  first 
chance  of  putting  an  end  to  this  time  of  horror? 

"Try  for  a  moment,"  an  objector  to  our  policy  might 


22  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

say,  "to  realize  the  extent  of  suffering  involved  in  one 
small  corner  of  a  battlefield.  You  have  seen  a  man  here 
and  there  badly  hurt  in  an  accident;  you  have  seen 
perhaps  a  horse  with  its  back  broken,  and  you  can  re- 
member how  dreadful  it  seemed  to  you.  In  that  one 
corner  how  many  men,  how  many  horses,  will  be  lying, 
hurt  far  worse  and  just  waiting  to  die?  Indescribable 
wounds,  extreme  torment;  and  all,  far  further  than  any 
eye  can  see,  multiplied  and  multiplied!  And,  for  all 
your  righteous  indignation  against  Germany,  what  have 
these  done?  The  horses  are  not  to  blame  for  anybody's 
foreign  policy.  They  have  only  come  where  their 
masters  took  them.  And  the  masters  themselves  .  .  . 
admitting  that  certain  highly  placed  Germans,  whose 
names  we  are  not  sure  of,  are  as  wicked  as  ever  you  like, 
these  soldiers  —  peasants  and  working-men  and  shop- 
keepers and  schoolmasters  —  have  really  done  nothing 
in  particular;  at  least,  perhaps  they  have  now,  but  they 
had  not  up  to  the  time  when  you,  seeing  they  were  in- 
volved in  war  and  misery  already,  decided  to  make  war 
on  them  also  and  increase  their  sufferings.  You  say 
that  justice  must  be  done  on  conspirators  and  public 
malefactors.  But  so  far  as  the  rights  and  wrongs  of  the 
war  go,  you  are  simply  condemning  innocent  men,  by 
thousands  and  thousands,  to  death,  or  even  to  mutilation 
and  torture;  is  that  the  best  way  to  satisfy  your  sense  of 
justice?  These  innocent  people,  you  will  say,  are  fight- 
ing to  protect  the  guilty  parties  whom  you  are  deter- 
mined to  reach.  Well,  perhaps,  at  the  end  of  the  war, 
after  millions  of  innocent  people  have  suffered,  you  may 
at  last,  if  all  goes  well  with  your  arms,  get  at  the  'guilty 
parties.'  You  will  hold  an  inquiry,  with  imperfect  evi- 
dence and  biased  judges;  you  will  decide  —  in  all  likeli- 


;how  can  war  ever  be  right?       23 

hood  wrongly  —  that  a  dozen  very  stupid  and  obstinate 
Prussians  with  long  titles  are  the  guilty  parties,  and  even 
then  you  will  not  know  what  to  do  with  them.  You  will 
probably  try,  and  almost  certainly  fail,  to  make  them 
somehow  feel  ashamed  or  humiliated.  It  is  likely  enough 
that  you  will  merely  make  them  into  national  heroes. 

"And  after  all,  this  is  assuming  quite  the  best  sort  of 
war:  a  war  in  which  one  party  is  wrong  and  the  other 
right,  and  the  right  wins.  Suppose  both  are  wrong; 
or  suppose  the  wrong  party  wins?  It  is  as  likely  as  not; 
for,  if  the  right  party  is  helped  by  his  good  conscience, 
the  wrong  has  probably  taken  pains  to  have  the  odds 
on  his  side  before  he  began  quarrelling.  In  that  case  all 
the  wild  expenditure  of  blood  and  treasure,  all  the  im- 
measurable suffering  of  innocent  individuals  and  dumb 
animals,  all  the  tears  of  women  and  children  in  the  back- 
ground, have  taken  place  not  to  vindicate  the  right,  but 
to  establish  the  wrong.  To  do  a  little  evil  that  great  or 
certain  good  may  come  is  all  very  well;  but  to  do  almost 
infinite  evil  for  a  doubtful  chance  of  attaining  something 
which  half  the  people  concerned  may  think  good  and  the 
other  half  think  bad,  and  which  in  no  imaginable  case 
can  ever  be  attained  in  fullness  or  purity  .  .  .  that  is 
neither  good  morals  nor  good  sense.  Anybody  not  in  a 
passion  must  see  that  it  is  insanity.' ' 

I  sympathize  with  every  step  of  this  argument;  yet 
I  think  it  is  wrong.  It  is  judging  of  the  war  as  a  profit- 
and-loss  account,  and  reckoning,  moreover,  only  the  im- 
mediate material  consequences.  It  leaves  out  of  sight 
the  cardinal  fact  that  in  some  causes  it  is  better  to  fight 
and  be  broken  than  to  yield  peacefully;  that  sometimes 
the  mere  act  of  resisting  to  the  death  is  in  itself  a  victory. 


24  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

Let  us  try  to  understand  this.  The  Greeks  who  fought 
and  died  at  Thermopylae  had  no  manner  of  doubt  that 
they  were  right  so  to  fight  and  die,  and  all  posterity 
has  agreed  with  them.  They  probably  knew  they  would 
be  defeated.  They  probably  expected  that,  after  their 
defeat,  the  Persians  would  proceed  easily  to  conquer  the 
rest  of  Greece,  and  would  treat  it  much  more  harshly 
because  it  had  resisted.  But  such  considerations  did  not 
affect  them.  They  would  not  consent  to  their  country's 
dishonour. 

Take  again  a  very  clear  modern  case :  the  fine  story 
of  the  French  tourist  who  was  captured,  together  with  a 
priest  and  some  other  white  people,  by  Moorish  robbers. 
The  Moors  gave  their  prisoners  the  choice  either  to 
trample  on  the  Cross  or  to  be  killed.  The  Frenchman 
happened  to  be  a  Freethinker  and  an  anti-clerical.  He 
disliked  Christianity.  But  he  was  not  going  to  trample 
on  the  Cross  at  the  orders  of  a  robber.  He  stuck  to  his 
companions  and  died. 

This  sense  of  honour  and  the  respect  for  this  sense 
of  honour  are  very  deep  instincts  in  the  average  man. 
In  the  United  States  there  is  a  rather  specially  strong 
feeling  against  mixture  of  blood,  not  only  with  the  blood 
of  coloured  people,  but  with  that  of  the  large  masses  of 
mankind  who  are  lumped  together  as  " dagoes"  or 
"hunkies."  Yet  I  have  noticed  that  persons  with  a  dash 
of  Red  Indian  blood  are  not  ashamed  but  rather  proud 
of  it.  And  if  you  look  for  the  reason,  I  suspect  it  lies 
in  the  special  reputation  which  the  Indian  has  acquired, 
that  he  would  never  consent  to  be  a  slave.  He  preferred 
to  fight  till  he  was  dead. 

A  deal  of  nonsense,  no  doubt,  is  talked  about  "  hon- 
our" and  "dishonour."   They  are  feelings  based  on  sen- 


HOW  CAN  WAR  EVER  BE  RIGHT?     25 

•  timent,  not  on  reason;  the  standards  by  which  they  are 
judged  are  often  conventional  or  shallow,  and  some- 
times utterly  false.  Yet  honour  and  dishonour  are  real 
things.  I  will  not  try  to  define  them;  but  will  only  notice 
that,  like  religion,  their  characteristic  is  that  they  ad- 
mit of  no  bargaining.  Indeed,  we  can  almost  think  of 
honour  as  being  simply  that  which  a  free  man  values 
more  than  life,  and  dishonour  as  that  which  he  avoids 
more  than  suffering  or  death.   And  the  important  point 

»  for  us  is  that  there  are  such  things. 

There  are  some  people,  followers  of  Tolstoy,  who  ac- 
cept this  position  so  far  as  dying  is  concerned,  but  will 
have  nothing  to  do  with  killing.  Passive  resistance,  they 
say,  is  right;  martyrdom  is  right;  but  to  resist  violence 
by  violence  is  sin. 

I  was  once  walking  with  a  friend  and  disciple  of 
Tolstoy's  in  a  country  lane,  and  a  little  girl  was  running 
in  front  of  us.  I  put  to  him  the  well-known  question: 
"Suppose  you  saw  a  man,  wicked  or  drunk  or  mad, 
run  out  and  attack  that  child.  You  are  a  big  man  and 
carry  a  big  stick:  would  you  not  stop  him  and,  if  neces- 
sary, knock  him  down?"  "No,"  he  said,  "why  should 
I  commit  a  sin?  I  would  try  to  persuade  him,  I  would 
stand  in  his  way,  I  would  let  him  kill  me,  but  I  would 
not  strike  him."  Some  few  people  will  always  be  found, 
less  than  one  in  a  thousand,  to  take  this  view.  They  will 
say:  "Let  the  little  girl  be  killed  or  carried  off;  let  the 
wicked  man  commit  another  wickedness;  I,  at  any  rate, 
will  not  add  to  the  mass  of  useless  violence  that  I  see 
all  round  me." 

With  such  persons  one  cannot  reason,  though  one  can 
often  respect  them.  Nearly  every  normal  man  will  feel 


26  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

that  the  real  sin,  the  real  dishonour,  lies  in  allowing  an 
abominable  act  to  be  committed  under  your  eyes  while 
you  have  the  strength  to  prevent  it.  And  the  stronger 
you  are,  the  greater  your  chance  of  success,  by  so  much 
the  more  are  you  bound  to  intervene.  If  the  robbers  are 
overpoweringly  strong  and  there  is  no  chance  of  beating 
or  baffling  them,  then  and  only  then  should  you  think  of 
martyrdom.  Martyrdom  is  not  the  best  possibility.  It 
is  almost  the  worst.  It  is  a  counsel  of  despair,  the  last 
resort  when  there  is  no  hope  of  successful  resistance. 
The  best  thing  —  suppose  once  the  robbers  are  there 
and  intent  on  crime  —  the  best  thing  is  to  overawe  them 
at  once;  the  next  best,  to  defeat  them  after  a  hard 
struggle;  the  third  best,  to  resist  vainly  and  be  martyred; 
the  worst  of  all,  the  one  evil  that  need  never  be  endured, 
is  to  let  them  have  their  will  without  protest.  (As  for 
converting  them  from  their  evil  ways,  that  is  a  process 
which  may  be  hoped  for  afterwards.) 

We  have  noticed  that  in  all  these  cases  of  honour 
there  is,  or  at  least  there  seems  to  be,  no  counting  of 
cost,  no  balancing  of  good  and  evil.  In  ordinary  con- 
duct, we  are  always  balancing  the  probable  results  of 
this  course  or  that;  but  when  honour  or  religion  comes 
on  the  scene  all  such  balancing  ceases.  If  you  argued  to 
the  Christian  martyr:  " Suppose  you  do  burn  the  pinch 
of  incense,  what  will  be  the  harm?  All  your  friends 
know  you  are  really  a  Christian :  they  will  not  be  misled. 
The  idol  will  not  be  any  the  better  for  the  incense,  nor 
will  your  own  true  God  be  any  the  worse.  Why  should 
you  bring  misery  on  yourself  and  all  your  family?"  Or 
suppose  you  pleaded,  with  the  French  atheist:  "Why  in 
the  world  should  you  not  trample  on  the  Cross?  It  is 
the  sign  of  the  clericalism  to  which  you  object.  Even  if 


HOW  CAN  WAR  EVER  BE  RIGHT?  27 

trampling  somewhat  exaggerates  your  sentiments,  the 
harm  is  small.  Who  will  be  a  penny  the  worse  for  your 
trampling?  While  you  will  live  instead  of  dying,  and  all 
your  family  be  happy  instead  of  wretched."  Suppose 
you  said  to  the  Red  Indian:  "My  friend,  you  are  out- 
numbered by  ten  to  one.  If  you  will  submit  uncondition- 
ally to  these  pale-faces,  and  be  always  civil  and  obliging, 
they  will  probably  treat  you  quite  well.  If  they  do  not, 
well,  you  can  reconsider  the  situation  later  on.  No  need 
to  get  yourself  killed  at  once." 

The  people  concerned  would  not  condescend  to  meet 
your  arguments.  Perhaps  they  can  be  met,  perhaps 
not.  But  it  is  in  the  very  essence  of  religion  or  honour 
that  it  must  outweigh  all  material  considerations.  The 
point  of  honour  is  the  point  at  which  a  man  says  to  some 
proposal,  "  I  will  not  do  it.  I  will  rather  die." 

These  things  are  far  easier  to  see  where  one  man  is 
involved  than  where  it  is  a  whole  nation.  But  they  arise 
with  nations  too.  In  the  case  of  a  nation  the  material 
consequences  are  much  larger,  and  the  point  of  honour 
is  apt  to  be  less  clear.  But,  in  general,  whenever  one 
nation  in  dealing  with  another  relies  simply  on  force  or 
fraud,  and  denies  to  its  neighbour  the  common  consid- 
eration due  to  human  beings,  a  point  of  honour  must 
arise. 

Austria  says  suddenly  to  Serbia:  "You  are  a  wicked 
little  State.  I  have  annexed  and  governed  against  their 
will  some  millions  of  your  countrymen,  yet  you  are  still 
full  of  anti-Austrian  feeling,  which  I  do  not  intend  to 
allow.  You  will  dismiss  from  your  service  all  officials, 
politicians,  and  soldiers  who  do  not  love  Austria,  and 
I  will  further  send  you  from  time  to  time  lists  of  persons 


28  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

whom  you  are  to  dismiss  or  put  to  death.  And  if  you  do 
not  agree  to  this  within  forty-eight  hours,  I,  being  vastly 
stronger  than  you,  will  make  you."  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
Serbia  did  her  very  best  to  comply  with  Austria's  de- 
mands; she  accepted  about  two  thirds  of  them,  and  asked 
for  arbitration  on  the  remaining  third.  But  it  is  clear 
that  she  could  not  accept  them  all  without  being  dis- 
honoured. That  is,  Serbia  would  have  given  up  her 
freedom  at  the  threat  of  force;  the  Serbs  would  no  longer 
be  a  free  people,  and  every  individual  Serb  would  have 
been  humiliated.  He  would  have  confessed  himself  to 
be  the  kind  of  man  who  will  yield  when  an  Austrian 
bullies  him.  And  if  it  is  urged  that  under  good  Austrian 
government  Serbia  would  become  richer  and  safer,  and 
the  Serbian  peasants  get  better  markets,  such  pleas  can- 
not be  listened  to.  They  are  a  price  offered  for  slavery; 
and  a  free  man  will  not  accept  slavery  at  a  price. 

Germany,  again,  says  to  Belgium  (we  leave  out  for 
the  moment  the  fact  of  Germany's  special  treaty  obliga- 
tions), "We  have  no  quarrel  with  you,  but  we  intend 
for  certain  reasons  to  march  across  your  territory  and 
perhaps  fight  a  battle  or  two  there.  We  know  that  you 
are  pledged  by  treaty  not  to  allow  any  such  thing,  but  we 
cannot  help  that.  Consent,  and  we  will  pay  you  some 
compensation  afterwards;  refuse,  and  we  shall  make 
you  wish  you  had  never  been  born."  At  that  moment 
Belgium  was  a  free  self-governing  State.  If  she  had 
yielded  to  Germany's  demand,  she  would  have  ceased  to 
be  either.  It  is  possible  that,  if  Germany  had  been  com- 
pletely victorious  and  France  quite  unable  to  retaliate, 
Belgium  would  have  suffered  no  great  material  injury; 
but  she  would  have  taken  orders  from  a  stranger  who 
had  no  right  to  give  them,  simply  because  he  was  strong 


HOW  CAN  WAR  EVER  BE  RIGHT?  29 

and  Belgium  dared  not  face  him.  Belgium  refused.  She 
has  had  some  of  her  principal  towns  destroyed,  some 
thousands  of  her  soldiers  killed,  many  more  thousands  of 
her  women,  children,  and  non-combatants  outraged  and 
beggared;  but  she  is  still  free.   She  has  still  her  honour. 

Let  us  think  this  matter  out  more  closely.  Our 
Tolstoyan  will  say:  "We  speak  of  Belgium's  honour 
and  Serbia's  honour;  but  who  is  Serbia  and  who  is 
Belgium?  There  is  no  such  person  as  either.  There  are 
only  great  numbers  of  people  who  happen  to  be  Serbians 
and  Belgians,  and  who  mostly  have  had  nothing  to  do 
with  the  questions  at  issue.  Some  of  them  are  honour- 
able people,  some  dishonourable.  The  honour  of  each 
one  of  them  depends  very  much  on  whether  he  pays  his 
debts  and  tells  the  truth,  but  not  in  the  least  on  whether 
a  number  of  foreigners  walk  through  his  country  or  in- 
terfere with  his  Government.  King  Albert  and  his  Min- 
isters might  feel  humiliated  if  the  German  Government 
compelled  them  to  give  way  against  their  will;  but  would 
the  ordinary  population?  Would  the  ordinary  peasant 
or  shopkeeper  or  artisan  in  the  districts  of  Vise*  and 
Liege  and  Louvain  have  felt  particularly  disgraced  or 
ashamed?  He  would  probably  have  made  a  little  money 
and  been  greatly  amused  by  the  sight  of  the  troops  pass- 
ing. Who  will  pretend  that  he  would  have  suffered  any 
injury  that  can  for  a  moment  be  compared  with  what  he 
has  suffered  now,  in  order  that  his  Government  may  feel 
proud  of  itself?" 

I  will  not  raise  the  point  that,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
to  grant  a  right  of  way  to  Germany  would  have  been 
equivalent  to  declaring  war  against  France,  so  that 
Belgium  would  not,  by  giving  up  her  independence,  have 


30  FAITPI,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

been  spared  the  danger  of  war.  I  will  assume  that 
nothing  but  honour  was  involved.  In  that  form,  this 
question  goes  to  the  root  of  our  whole  conception  of 
citizenship  and  the  position  of  man  in  society.  And  I 
believe  that  our  Tolstoyan  friend  is  profoundly  wrong. 
Is  it  true,  in  a  healthy  and  well-governed  State,  that 
the  average  citizen  is  indifferent  to  the  honour  of  his 
country?  We  know  that  it  is  not.  True,  the  average 
citizen  may  often  not  understand  what  is  going  on,  but 
as  soon  as  he  knows  he  cares.  Suppose  for  a  moment 
that  the  King,  or  the  Prime  Minister,  or  the  President 
of  the  United  States,  were  found  to  be  in  the  pay  of  a 
foreign  State,  as  for  instance  Charles  II  was  in  the  pay 
of  Louis  XIV,  can  any  one  pretend  that  the  ordinary 
citizens  of  Great  Britain  or  America  would  take  it 
quietly?  that  any  normal  man  would  be  found  saying: 
"  Well,  the  King,  or  the  President,  or  the  Prime  Minister, 
is  behaving  dishonourably,  but  that  is  a  matter  for  him, 
not  for  me.  I  am  an  honest  and  honourable  man,  and 
my  Government  can  do  what  it  likes."  The  notion  is 
absurd.  The  ordinary  citizen  would  feel  instantly  and 
without  question  that  his  country's  honour  involved  his 
own.  And  woe  to  the  society  in  which  it  were  other- 
wise! We  know  of  such  societies  in  history.  They  are 
the  kind  which  is  called  "  corrupt,"  and  which  generally 
has  not  long  to  live.  Belgium  has  proved  that  she  is  not 
that  kind  of  society. 

But  what  about  Great  Britain  herself?  At  the  present 
moment  a  very  clear  case  has  arisen,  and  we  can  test  our 
own  feelings.  Great  Britain  had,  by  a  solemn  treaty 
more  than  once  renewed,  pledged  herself  to  maintain  the 
neutrality  of  Belgium.    Belgium  is  a  little  State  lying 


HOW  CAN  WAR  EVER  BE  RIGHT?  31 

•  between  two  very  strong  States,  France  and  Germany, 
and  in  danger  of  being  overrun  or  maltreated  by  one 
of  them  unless  the  Great  Powers  guarantee  her  safety. 
The  treaty,  signed  by  Prussia,  Russia,  Austria,  France, 
and  Great  Britain,  bound  all  these  Powers  not  to  attack 
Belgium,  move  troops  into  her  territory,  or  annex  any 
part  of  it;  and  further,  to  resist  by  armed  force  any 
Power  which  should  try  to  do  any  of  these  things.  Bel- 
gium, on  her  part,  was  bound  to  maintain  her  own  neu- 
trality to  the  best  of  her  power,  and  not  to  side  with  any 
State  which  was  at  war  with  another. 

At  the  end  of  last  July  the  exact  case  arose  in  which 
we  had  pledged  ourselves  to  act.  Germany  suddenly  and 
without  excuse  invaded  Belgium,  and  Belgium  appealed 
to  us  and  France  to  defend  her.  Meantime  she  fought 
alone,  desperately,  against  overwhelming  odds.  The 
issue  was  clear,  and  free  from  any  complications.  The 
German  Chancellor,  Herr  von  Bethmann-Hollweg,  in  his 
speech  of  August  6,  admitted  that  Germany  had  no 
grievance  against  Belgium,  and  no  excuse  except  "  neces- 
sity." She  could  not  get  to  France  quick  enough  by  the 
direct  road.  Germany  put  her  case  to  us,  roughly,  on 
these  grounds.  "True,  you  did  sign  a  treaty,  but  what 
is  a  treaty?  We  ourselves  signed  the  same  treaty,  and 
see  what  we  are  doing !  Anyhow,  treaty  or  no  treaty,  we 
have  Belgium  absolutely  in  our  power.  If  she  had  done 
what  we  wanted,  we  would  have  treated  her  kindly;  as 
it  is  we  shall  show  her  no  mercy.  If  you  will  now  do 
what  we  want  and  stay  quiet,  later  on,  at  our  conven- 
ience, we  will  consider  a  friendly  deal  with  you.  If  you 
interfere,  you  must  take  the  consequences.  We  trust 
you  will  not  be  so  insane  as  to  plunge  your  whole  Empire 
•  into  danger  for  the  sake  of  'a  scrap  of  paper.'"   Our 


32  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

•  answer  was:  "Evacuate  Belgium  within  twelve  hours  or 
we  fight  you." 

I  think  that  answer  was  right.  Consider  the  situation 
>  carefully.  No  question  arises  of  overhaste  or  lack  of 
patience  on  our  part.  From  the  first  moment  of  the 
crisis,  we  had  laboured  night  and  day  in  every  Court  of 
Europe  for  any  possible  means  of  conciliation  and  peace. 
We  had  carefully  and  sincerely  explained  to  Germany 
beforehand  what  attitude  she  might  expect  from  us. 
We  did  not  send  our  ultimatum  till  Belgium  was  already 

•  invaded.  It  is  just  the  plain  question  put  to  the  British 
Government,  and,  I  think,  to  every  one  who  feels  himself 
a  British  citizen :  "  The  exact  case  contemplated  in  your 
treaty  has  arisen:  the  people  you  swore  to  protect  is 
being  massacred;  will  you  keep  your  word  at  a  gigantic 
cost,  or  will  you  break  it  at  the  bidding  of  Germany?  " 
For  my  own  part,  weighing  the  whole  question  soberly 
and  without  undue  passion,  I  feel  that  in  this  case  I  would 
rather  die  than  submit;  and  I  believe  that  the  Govern- 
ment, in  deciding  to  keep  its  word  at  the  cost  of  war,  has 
rightly  interpreted  the  feeling  of  the  average  British 

•  citizen. 

So  much  for  the  question  of  honour,  pure  and  simple; 
honour  without  regard  for  consequences.  But,  of  course, 
situations  in  real  political  life  are  never  so  simple  as  that; 
they  have  many  different  aspects  and  ramifications. 
And  in  the  present  case,  though  the  point  of  honour 
happens  to  be  quite  clear,  it  seems  probable  that  even 
without  it  there  were  compelling  reasons  for  war.  I  do 
not,  of  course,  for  a  moment  mean  that  war  was  going 
to  be  "profitable"  to  Great  Britain;  such  a  calculation 
would  be  infamous.  I  mean  that,  terrible  as  the  conse- 


HOW  CAN  WAR  EVER  BE  RIGHT?    33 

quences  of  our  taking  part  in  the  war  were  sure  to  be, 
the  consequences  of  our  not  doing  so  were  likely  to  be 
even  more  profoundly  and  widely  evil. 

Let  us  leave  aside,  then,  the  definite  treaty  binding 
us  to  Belgium.  Apart  from  that,  we  were  faced  with 
a  complicated  question  of  statesmanship,  of  prudence, 
of  patriotism  towards  our  own  country  and  towards 
humanity. 

Germany  has  for  years  presented  a  problem  to  Europe. 
Since  her  defeat  of  France  in  1870,  she  has  been  extra- 
ordinarily successful,  and  the  success  seems  to  have  in- 
toxicated her.  This  is  a  complicated  subject,  which  calls 
for  far  deeper  knowledge  than  I  possess.  I  will  merely 
try  to  state,  as  fairly  as  I  can,  the  impression  that  has 
been  forced  on  me  by  a  certain  amount  of  reading  and 
observation.  From  the  point  of  view  of  one  who  really 
believes  that  great  nations  ought  to  behave  to  one 
another  as  scrupulously  and  honourably  as  ordinary, 
law-abiding  men,  no  Power  in  Europe,  or  out  of  it,  is 
quite  blameless.  They  all  have  ambitions;  they  all,  to 
some  extent,  use  spies;  they  all,  within  limits,  try  to 
outwit  each  other;  in  their  diplomatic  dealings  they 
rely  not  only  on  the  claims  of  good  sense  and  justice, 
but  ultimately,  no  doubt,  on  the  threat  of  possible  force. 
But,  as  a  matter  of  degree,  Germany  does  all  these 
things  more  than  other  Powers.  In  her  diplomacy,  force 
comes  at  once  to  the  front;  international  justice  is  hardly 
mentioned.  She  spends  colossal  sums  on  her  secret 
service,  so  that  German  spies  are  become  a  by-word  and 
a  joke.  In  the  recognized  sport  of  international  treach- 
ery, she  goes  frequently  beyond  the  rules  of  the  game. 
Her  Emperor,  her  Imperial  Chancellor,  and  other  peo- 
ple in  the  highest  positions  of  responsibility,  expound 


34  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

her  ambitions  and  her  schemes  in  language  which  would 
only  be  used  by  an  irresponsible  journalist  in  England 
or  France.  They  discuss,  for  instance,  whether  the  time 
has  come  for  conquering  France  once  more,  and  how 
best  they  can  "bleed  her  white"  and  reduce  her  to  im- 
potence. They  explain  that  Bismarck  and  his  generation 
have  made  Germany  the  strongest  Power  on  the  Conti- 
nent. "The  will  of  Germany  is  now  respected"  in  Eu- 
rope; it  rests  with  the  present  Emperor  to  make  it 
similarly  respected  throughout  the  world.  "Germany's 
world-future  lies  on  the  sea."  They  discuss  whether  they 
can  build  up  a  fleet  strong  enough  to  fight  and  beat  the 
British  fleet  without  Great  Britain  interfering.  They 
discuss  in  public  how  many  colonies,  and  which,  they 
will  leave  to  Great  Britain  when  the  great " Day"  comes. 
They  express  regret,  combined,  so  far  as  one  can  make 
out,  with  a  little  genuine  surprise,  that  the  "brutal 
egoism  of  Great  Britain"  should  raise  any  objection  to 
this  plan  and  they  hope  —  openly  and  publicly  —  that 
her  well-known  weakness  and  cowardice  will  make  her 
afraid  to  act.  Since  Great  Britain  has  a  vast  number  of 
Mohammedan  subjects,  who  may  possibly  be  stirred  to 
disaffection,  the  German  Emperor  proclaims  to  "the 
three  hundred  million  Mohammedans  who  live  scattered 
over  the  globe"  that  whenever  they  need  him,  the 
German  Emperor  will  be  their  friend.  And  this  in  1898, 
in  the  middle  of  profound  peace!  Professors  in  German 
Universities  lecture  on  the  best  way  of  destroying  the 
British  Empire,  and  the  officers'  messes  in  the  German 
Navy  regularly  drink  the  toast  of  "The  Day."  There  is 
no  need  to  explain  what  Day.  The  curious  thing  is  that 
these  plans  are  all  expounded  in  public  speeches  and 
books  —  strange  books,  in  which  the  average  civilized 


HOW  CAN  WAR  EVER  BE  RIGHT?  35 

sense  of  international  justice  or  common  honesty  seems 
to  have  been  left  out  of  account,  as  well  as  the  sense 
of  common  political  prudence;  in  which  the  schemes 
of  an  accomplished  burglar  are  expounded  with  the 
candour  of  a  child. 

And  all  through  this  period,  in  which  she  plots  against 
her  neighbours  and  tells  them  she  is  plotting,  Germany 
lives  in  a  state  of  alarm.  Her  neighbours  are  so  un- 
friendly! Their  attitude  may  be  correct,  but  it  is  not 
trustful  and  cordial.  The  Imperial  Chancellor,  Von 
Bulow,  explains  in  his  book  that  there  was  only  one 
time  when  he  really  breathed  freely.  It  was  in  1909, 
when  Austria,  his  ally,  annexed  by  violence  and  against 
her  pledges  the  two  Slav  provinces  of  Bosnia  and  Herze- 
govina. All  Europe  was  indignant,  especially  Russia, 
the  natural  protector  of  the  Slavs,  and  England,  the 
habitual  champion  of  small  nationalities.  But  Germany 
put  down  her  foot.  The  Kaiser  "  appeared  in  shining 
armour  beside  his  ally/'  and  no  Power  dared  to  intervene. 
Germany  was  in  the  wrong.  Every  one  knew  she  was 
in  the  wrong.  It  was  just  that  fact  that  was  so  comfort- 
ing. Her  army  was  big  enough,  her  navy  was  big  enough, 
and  for  the  moment  the  timid  creature  felt  secure. 

Lastly,  we  must  remember  that  it  is  Germany  who 
started  the  race  for  armaments;  and  that  while  Russia 
has  pressed  again  and  again  for  a  general  limitation  of 
armies,  and  England  made  proposal  after  proposal  for 
a  general  limitation  of  navies,  Germany  has  steadily 
refused  to  entertain  any  such  idea. 

Now,  for  some  time  it  was  possible  to  minimize  all 
these  danger-signals,  and,  for  my  own  part,  I  have  al- 
ways tried  to  minimize  them.  There  are  militarists  and 


3G  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

Jingoes  in  every  country;  our  own  have  often  been  bad 
enough.  The  German  sort  seemed  unusually  blatant, 
but  it  did  not  follow  that  they  carried  their  country 
with  them.  The  Kaiser,  always  impulsive,  said  on  the 
whole  more  friendly  things  than  unfriendly  things.  At 
any  rate,  it  seemed  wiser  and  more  statesmanlike  to 
meet  provocation  with  good  temper,  and  to  try  by  per- 
sistent friendliness  to  encourage  all  the  more  liberal  and 
reasonable  elements  in  German  public  life.  This  policy 
seemed  possible  until  the  July  of  the  present  year.  Then 
certain  facts  were  forced  upon  us.  They  are  all  detailed 
in  the  White  Paper  and  the  other  diplomatic  correspond- 
ence. 

We  suddenly  found  that  Germany  and  Austria,  or 
some  conspiring  parties  in  Germany  and  Austria,  had 
arranged  for  a  great  stroke,  like  that  of  1909  on  a  larger 
scale.  It  was  so  obviously  aggressive  in  its  nature  that 
their  ally,  Italy,  the  third  Power  in  the  Triple  Alliance, 
formally  refused  to  act  with  them.  The  Alliance  only 
applied  to  a  defensive  war.  The  time  had  been  carefully 
chosen.  England  was  supposed  to  be  on  the  verge  of 
a  civil  war  in  Ireland  and  a  new  mutiny  in  India. 
France  had  just  been  through  a  military  scandal,  in 
which  it  appeared  that  the  army  was  short  of  boots  and 
ammunition.  Russia,  besides  a  general  strike  and  in- 
ternal troubles,  was  re-arming  her  troops  with  a  new 
weapon,  and  the  process  was  only  half  through.  Even 
the  day  was  chosen.  It  was  in  a  week  when  nearly  all 
the  ambassadors  were  away  from  their  posts,  taking 
their  summer  holiday  —  the  English  Ambassador  at 
Berlin,  the  Russian  Ambassadors  at  Berlin  and  Vienna, 
the  Austrian  Foreign  Minister,  the  French  Prime  Min- 
ister, the  Serbian  Prime  Minister,  the  Kaiser  himself, 


HOW  CAN  WAR  EVER  BE  RIGHT?  37 

and  others  who  might  have  used  a  restraining  influence 
on  the  schemes  of  the  war  party.  Suddenly,  without  a 
word  to  any  outside  Power,  Austria  issued  an  ultimatum 
to  Serbia,  to  be  answered  in  forty-eight  hours.  Seventeen 
of  these  hours  had  elapsed  before  the  other  Powers  were 
informed,  and  war  was  declared  on  Serbia  before  all 
the  ambassadors  could  get  back  to  their  posts.  The 
leading  statesmen  of  Europe  sat  up  all  night  trying  for 
conciliation,  for  arbitration,  even  for  bare  delay.  At  the 
last  moment,  when  the  Austrian  Foreign  Minister  had 
returned,  and  had  consented  to  a  basis  for  conversations 
with  Russia,  there  seemed  to  be  a  good  chance  that 
peace  might  be  preserved;  but  at  that  moment  Ger- 
many launched  her  ultimatum  at  Russia  and  France,  and 
Austria  was  already  invading  Serbia.  In  twenty-four 
hours,  six  European  Powers  were  at  war. 

Now,  the  secret  history  of  this  strange  intrigue  is  not 
yet  known.  It  will  not  be  known  for  fifty  years  or  so. 
It  is  impossible  to  believe  that  the  German  nation 
would  have  backed  up  the  plot,  if  they  had  understood 
it.  It  is  difficult  to  think  that  the  Kaiser  would;  and 
the  Austrian  Foreign  Minister,  when  once  he  returned, 
tried  to  undo  the  work  of  his  subordinates.  But  some- 
how the  war  parties  in  Germany  and  Austria  got  the 
upper  hand  for  one  fatal  week,  and  have  managed  to 
drag  their  countries  after  them. 

We  saw,  as  Italy  had  seen,  that  Germany  had  pre- 
arranged the  war.  We  saw  her  breaking  her  treaties 
and  overrunning  little  Belgium,  as  her  ally  was  trampling 
on  little  Serbia.  We  remembered  her  threats  against 
ourselves.  And  at  this  very  time,  as  if  to  deepen  our 
suspicions,  she  made  us  what  has  been  justly  termed  an 
"infamous  proposal,"  that  if  we  would  condone  her 


38  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

treaty-breaking  now,  she  would  have  an  "understand- 
ing" with  us  afterwards. 

Suppose  we  had  not  been  bound  by  our  treaty  to 
Belgium,  or  even  our  natural  and  informal  friendship 
with  France:  what  could  we  have  done?  I  wish  to  take 
no  low  ground;  I  wish  to  face  the  question  from  the 
point  of  view  of  a  statesman  who  owes  a  duty  to  his  own 
country  and  a  duty  to  Europe. 

The  one  thing  which  we  could  not  have  done,  in  my 
opinion,  was  to  repudiate  our  responsibility.  We  are 
a  very  strong  Power,  one  of  the  strongest  in  the  world, 
and  here,  under  our  eyes  and  within  range  of  our  guns, 
a  thing  was  being  done  which  menaced  every  living 
creature  in  Europe.  The  one  thing  that  no  statesman 
could  possibly  do  was  to  say:  "This  is  no  concern  of 
ours.  We  will  go  our  ways  as  usual."  It  was  perfectly 
possible  to  stand  aside  and  proclaim  our  neutrality. 
But  —  apart  from  questions  of  honour  —  to  proclaim 
neutrality  was  quite  as  grave  a  step  as  to  proclaim 
war.  Let  no  man  imagine  that  he  can  escape  blood- 
guiltiness  by  standing  still  while  murder  is  committed 
before  his  eyes. 

I  will  not  argue  here  what  the  right  decision  would 
have  been.  It  depends,  unlike  the  point  of  honour,  on 
a  careful  balancing  of  evidence  and  consequences,  and 
scarcely  any  one  in  the  country  except  the  Government 
has  sufficient  knowledge  to  make  the  balance.  For  my 
own  part,  I  should  have  started  with  a  strong  predilec- 
tion for  peace,  even  a  fragmentary  peace,  but  should 
ultimately  have  been  guided  chiefly  by  the  public  men 
whom  I  most  trust.  But,  as  things  fell  out,  our  Govern- 
ment was  not  forced  to  make  a  decision  on  this  difficult 


HOW  CAN  WAR  EVER  BE  RIGHT?  39 

ground  at  all,  because  Germany  took  a  further  step 
which  made  the  whole  situation  clear.  Her  treatment 
of  Belgium  not  only  roused  our  passionate  indignation, 
but  compelled  us  either  to  declare  war  or  to  break  our 
pledged  word.  I  incline,  however,  to  think  that  our 
whole  welfare  is  so  vitally  dependent  on  the  observance 
of  public  law  and  the  rights  of  nations,  and  would  have 
been  so  terribly  endangered  by  the  presence  of  Germany 
in  a  conqueror's  mood  at  Ostend  and  Zeebrugge,  not  to 
speak  of  Dunkirk  and  Calais,  that  in  this  case  mere  self- 
preservation  called  us  to  fight.  I  do  not  venture  to  lay 
any  stress  on  the  hopes  which  we  may  entertain  for  the 
building  up  of  a  better  Europe  after  the  war,  a  Europe 
which  shall  have  settled  its  old  feuds  and  devised  some 
great  machinery  for  dealing  with  new  difficulties  as  they 
arise,  on  a  basis  of  justice  and  concord,  not  of  intrigue 
and  force.  By  all  means  let  us  hope,  let  us  work,  for 
that  rebuilding;  but  it  will  be  a  task  essentially  difficult 
when  it  comes;  and  the  very  beginning  of  it  lies  far 
away,  separated  from  the  present  time  and  the  immediate 
task  by  many  terrific  hazards.  We  have  no  right  to 
soothe  our  consciences  concerning  the  war  with  profes- 
sions of  the  fine  and  generous  things  that  we  are  going 
to  do  afterwards.  Doubtless  Germany  was  going  to 
make  us  all  good  and  happy  when  she  was  once  sure  of 
our  obedience.  For  the  moment  we  can  think  only  of 
our  duty,  and  need  of  self-preservation.  And  I  believe 
that  in  this  matter  the  two  run  together:  our  interest 
coincides  with  our  honour. 

It  is  curious  how  often  this  is  the  case.  It  is  one  of 
the  old  optimistic  beliefs  of  nineteenth-century  Liberal- 
ism, and  one  which  is  often  ridiculed,  that  a  nation's 


40  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

duty  generally  does  coincide  with  its  interest.  No  doubt 
one  can  find  abundant  exceptions,  but  I  believe  that  in 
the  main,  for  nations  as  for  individuals,  real  palpable 
conscious  dishonesty  or  wickedness  is  exceedingly  un- 
profitable. This  is  a  more  interesting  fact  than  it  looks 
at  first  sight.  5  i 

There  are  many  poisons  which  arc  simply  so  nasty 
that,  undisguised,  they  cannot  be  swallowed.  No  power 
could  induce  a  man  or  dog  to  sip  or  lap  a  tablespoonful 
of  nicotine  or  prussic  acid.  You  might  coax  the  dog 
with  future  bones,  you  might  persuade  the  man  that  the 
medicine  was  just  what  his  health  needed;  but  their 
swallowing  muscles  would  refuse  to  act.  Doubtless,  in 
the  scheme  of  nature,  the  disgust  is  a  provision  which 
saves  the  race.  Now  I  cannot  help  suspecting  that, 
much  more  faintly  and  more  fallibly,  the  vehement  and 
invincible  refusal  with  which  man's  sense  of  honour  or 
religion  meets  certain  classes  of  proposal,  which  look 
profitable  enough  on  the  surface,  is  just  such  another 
warning  of  nature  against  poison.  In  all  these  cases  dis- 
cussed above,  the  Christian's  martyrdom,  the  honour- 
able man's  refusal  to  desert  his  companions,  it  was  not 
true  to  say,  as  we  seemed  to  say,  that  advantage  was 
on  one  side  and  honour  on  the  other.  Dishonour  would 
have  brought  with  it  a  subtler  and  more  lasting  disad- 
vantage, greater  in  its  sum  than  immediate  death.  If 
the  Christian  had  sacrificed  to  the  idol,  what  would  his 
life  have  been  afterwards?  Perhaps  his  friends  would 
have  rejected  his  example  and  been  martyred;  he  would 
be  alone  in  his  shame.  Perhaps  they  would  have  followed 
his  example,  and  through  him  the  whole  band  of  the 
"faithful"  have  betrayed  Christ.  Not  a  very  enviable 
choice  either  way.   Without  any  tall  talk  or  high  pro- 


HOW  CAN  WAR  EVER  BE  RIGHT?  41 

fessions,  would  it  not  quite  certainly  be  better  for  the 
whole  Church  and  probably  for  the  man  himself  that 
he  should  defy  his  persecutors  and  die?  And  does  not 
the  same  now  hold  for  any  patriotic  Belgian  or  Serbian 
who  has  had  a  voice  in  his  country's  action?  The  choice 
was  not  on  the  one  hand  honour  and  misery,  on  the 
other  dishonour  and  a  happy  life.  It  was  on  the  one 
hand  honour  and  great  physical  suffering,  on  the  other 
hand  dishonour  and  a  life  subtly  affected  by  that  dis- 
honour in  a  thousand  unforeseen  ways.  I  do  not  under- 
rate the  tremendous  importance  of  mere  physical  suffer- 
ing; I  do  not  underrate  the  advantage  of  living  as  long 
a  life  as  is  conveniently  possible.  But  men  must  die 
some  time,  and,  if  we  dare  really  to  confess  the  truth, 
the  thing  that  most  of  us  in  our  hearts  long  for,  the  thing 
which  either  means  ultimate  happiness  or  else  is  greater 
and  dearer  to  men  than  happiness,  is  the  power  to  do  our 
duty  and,  when  we  die,  to  have  done  it.  The  behaviour 
of  our  soldiers  and  sailors  proves  it.  "  The  last  I  saw  of 
him  was  on  the  after  bridge,  doing  well."  The  words  come 
in  the  official  report  made  by  the  captain  of  one  of  our 
lost  cruisers.  But  that  is  the  kind  of  epitaph  nearly  all 
men  crave  for  themselves,  and  the  wisest  men,  I  think, 
even  for  their  nation. 

And  if  we  accept  this  there  will  follow  further  conse- 
quences. War  is  not  all  evil.  It  is  a  true  tragedy,  which 
must  have  nobleness  and  triumph  in  it  as  well  as  dis- 
aster. .  .  .  This  is  dangerous  ground.  The  subject  lends 
itself  to  foolish  bombast,  especially  when  accompanied 
by  a  lack  of  true  imagination.  We  must  not  begin  to 
praise  war  without  stopping  to  reflect  on  the  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  human  beings  involved  in  such  horrors 


42  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

of  pain  and  indignity  that,  if  here  in  our  ordinary  hours 
we  saw  one  man  so  treated,  the  memory  would  sicken  us 
to  the  end  of  our  lives;  we  must  remember  the  horses, 
remember  the  gentle  natures  brutalized  by  hardship  and 
filth,  and  the  once  decent  persons  transformed  by  rage 
and  fear  into  devils  of  cruelty.  But,  when  we  have  real- 
ized that,  we  may  venture  to  see  in  this  wilderness  of 
evil  some  oases  of  extraordinary  good. 

These  men  who  are  engaged  in  what  seems  like  a  vast 
public  crime  ought,  one  would  think,  to  fall  to  something 
below  their  average  selves,  below  the  ordinary  standard 
of  common  folk.  But  do  they?  Day  after  day  come 
streams  of  letters  from  the  front,  odd  stories,  fragments 
of  diaries,  and  the  like,  full  of  the  small,  intimate  facts 
which  reveal  character;  and  almost  with  one  accord  they 
show  that  these  men  have  not  fallen,  but  risen.  No 
doubt  there  has  been  some  selection  in  the  letters;  to 
some  extent  the  writers  repeat  what  they  wish  to  have 
remembered,  and  say  nothing  of  what  they  wish  to  for- 
get. But,  when  all  allowances  are  made,  one  cannot  read 
the  letters  and  the  dispatches  without  a  feeling  of  al- 
most passionate  admiration  for  the  men  about  whom 
they  tell.  They  were  not  originally  a  set  of  men  chosen 
for  their  peculiar  qualities.  They  were  just  our  ordinary 
fellow  citizens,  the  men  you  meet  on  a  crowded  pave- 
ment. There  was  nothing  to  suggest  that  their  conduct 
in  common  life  was  better  than  that  of  their  neighbours. 
Yet  now,  under  the  stress  of  war,  having  a  duty  before 
them  that  is  clear  and  unquestioned  and  terrible,  they 
are  daily  doing  nobler  things  than  we  most  of  us  have 
ever  had  the  chance  of  doing,  things  which  we  hardly 
dare  hope  that  we  might  be  able  to  do.  I  am  not  think- 
ing of  the  rare  achievements  that  win  a  V.C.  or  a  Cross 


HOW  CAN  WAR  EVER  BE  RIGHT?  43 

of  the  Legion  of  Honour,  but  of  the  common  necessary 
heroism  of  the  average  men :  the  long  endurance,  the  de- 
voted obedience,  the  close-banded  life  in  which  self- 
sacrifice  is  the  normal  rule,  and  all  men  may  be  forgiven 
except  the  man  who  saves  himself  at  the  expense  of  his 
comrade.  I  think  of  the  men  who  share  their  last  bis- 
cuits with  a  starving  peasant,  who  help  wounded  com- 
rades through  days  and  nights  of  horrible  retreat,  who 
give  their  lives  to  save  mates  or  officers. l  Or  I  think  again 

1  For  example,  to  take  two  stories  out  of  a  score:  — 

1.  Relating  his  experiences  to  a  pressman,  Lance-Corporal  Edmond- 
son,  of  the  Royal  Irish  Lancers,  said:  "There  is  absolutely  no  doubt 
that  our  men  are  still  animated  by  the  spirit  of  old.  I  came  on  a  couple 
of  men  of  the  Argyll  and  Sutherland  Highlanders  who  had  been  cut 
off  at  Mons.  One  was  badly  wounded,  but  his  companion  had  stuck 
by  him  all  the  time  in  a  country  swarming  with  Germans,  and  though 
they  had  only  a  few  biscuits  between  them  they  managed  to  pull 
through  until  we  picked  them  up.  I  pressed  the  unwounded  man  to 
tell  me  how  they  managed  to  get  through  the  four  days  on  six  biscuits, 
but  he  always  got  angry  and  told  me  to  shut  up.  I  fancy  he  went 
without  anything,  and  gave  the  biscuits  to  the  wounded  man.  They 
were  offered  shelter  many  times  by  French  peasants,  but  they  were  so 
afraid  of  bringing  trouble  on  these  kind  folk  that  they  would  never 
accept  shelter.  One  night  they  lay  out  in  the  open  all  through  a  heavy 
downpour,  though  there  was  a  house  at  hand  where  they  could  have 
had  shelter.  Uhlans  were  on  the  prowl,  and  they  would  not  think  of 
compromising  the  French  people,  who  would  have  been  glad  to  help 
them." 

2.  The  following  story  of  an  unidentified  private  of  the  Royal  Irish 
Regiment,  who  deliberately  threw  away  his  life  in  order  to  warn  his 
comrades  of  an  ambush,  is  told  by  a  wounded  corporal  of  the  West 
Yorkshire  Regiment  now  in  hospital  in  Woolwich :  — 

"The  fight  in  which  I  got  hit  was  in  a  little  village  near  to  Rheims. 
We  were  working  in  touch  with  the  French  corps  on  our  left,  and  early 
one  morning  we  were  sent  ahead  to  this  village,  which  we  had  reason 
to  believe  was  clear  of  the  enemy.  On  the  outskirts  we  questioned  a 
French  lad,  but  he  seemed  scared  and  ran  away.  We  went  on  through 
the  long,  narrow  street,  and  just  as  we  were  in  sight  of  the  end  the 
figure  of  a  man  dashed  out  from  a  farmhouse  on  the  right.  Imme- 
diately the  rifles  began  to  crack  in  front,  and  the  poor  chap  fell  dead 
before  he  reached  us. 

"He  was  one  of  our  men,  a  private  of  the  Royal  Irish  Regiment. 
We  learned  that  he  had  been  captured  the  previous  day  by  a  maraud- 
ing party  of  German  cavalry,  and  had  been  held  a  prisoner  at  the 


44  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

of  the  expressions  on  faces  that  I  have  seen  or  read 
about,  something  alert  and  glad  and  self-respecting  in 
the  eyes  of  those  who  are  going  to  the  front,  and  even  of 
the  wounded  who  are  returning.  "Never  once,"  writes 
one  correspondent,  "not  once  since  I  came  to  France 
have  I  seen  among  the  soldiers  an  angry  face  or  heard 
an  angry  word.  .  .  .  They  are  always  quiet,  orderly,  and 
wonderfully  cheerful."  And  no  one  who  has  followed 
the  war  need  be  told  of  their  heroism.  I  do  not  forget 
the  thousands  left  on  the  battlefield  to  die,  or  the  groan- 
ing of  the  wounded  sounding  all  day  between  the  crashes 
of  the  guns.  But  there  is  a  strange  deep  gladness  as 
well.  "One  feels  an  extraordinary  freedom,"  says  a 
young  Russian  officer,  "in  the  midst  of  death,  with  the 
bullets  whistling  round.  The  same  with  all  the  soldiers. 
The  wounded  all  want  to  get  well  and  return  to  the  fight. 
They  fight  with  tears  of  joy  in  their  eyes." 

Human  nature  is  a  mysterious  thing,  and  man  finds 
his  weal  and  woe  not  in  the  obvious  places.  To  have 
something  before  you,  clearly  seen,  which  you  know 
you  must  do,  and  can  do,  and  will  spend  your  utmost 
strength  and  perhaps  your  life  in  doing,  that  is  one  form 
at  least  of  very  high  happiness,  and  one  that  appeals  — 
the  facts  prove  it  —  not  only  to  saints  arTd  heroes,  but 
to  average  men.  Doubtless  the  few  who  are  wise  enough 

farm  where  the  Germans  were  in  ambush  for  us.  He  tumbled  to  their 
game,  and  though  he  knew  that  if  he  made  the  slightest  sound  they 
would  kill  him,  he  decided  to  make  a  dash  to  warn  us  of  what  was  in 
store.  He  had  more  than  a  dozen  bullets  in  him,  and  there  was  not  the 
slightest  hope  for  him.  We  carried  him  into  a  house  until  the  fight  was 
over,  and  then  we  buried  him  next  day  with  military  honours.  His 
identification  disk  and  everything  else  was  missing,  so  that  we  could 
only  put  over  his  grave  the  tribute  that  was  paid  to  a  greater:  'He 
saved  others;  himself  he  could  not  save.'  There  wasn't  a  dry  eye 
among  us  when  we  laid  him  to  rest  in  that  little  village." 


HOW  CAN  WAR  EVER  BE  RIGHT?  45 

and  have  enough  imagination  may  find  opportunity  for 
that  same  happiness  in  everyday  life,  but  in  war  ordi- 
nary men  find  it.  This  is  the  inward  triumph  which  lies 
at  the  heart  of  the  great  tragedy. 


Ill 

HERD  INSTINCT  AND  THE  WAR1 

(February,  1915) 

At  the  Natural  History  Museum,  South  Kensington, 
close  to  the  entrance,  you  can  buy  for  the  sum  of  four- 
pence  a  most  fascinating  little  book  on  "The  Fossil  Re- 
mains of  Man."  It  is  official  and,  I  presume,  authorita- 
tive. And  it  tells  how,  in  very  remote  times,  before  there 
was  any  South  Kensington  Museum,  or  any  England, 
or,  I  believe,  in  the  strict  sense,  any  Europe,  there  lived 
in  swampy  forests  in  various  parts  of  the  world,  troops 
of  little  lemur-like  tree-dwellers.  They  were,  I  suppose, 
rather  like  small  monkeys,  but  much  prettier.  They  had 
nice  fur,  good  prehensile  tails,  and  effective  teeth.  Then 
there  fell  upon  them,  or  some  of  them,  a  momentous 
change,  a  hypertrophy  or  overdevelopment  of  one  part 
of  the  body.  This  kind  of  special  increase,  the  author 
tells  us,  seldom  stop's  till  it  becomes  excessive.  With  the 
lemurs  it  was  the  brain  which  began  to  grow.  It  grew 
and  grew,  both  in  size  and  in  complexity.  The  rest  of 
the  body  suffered  in  consequence.  The  fur  became 
mangy  and  disappeared.  The  prehensile  tails  wasted 
away.  The  teeth  ceased  to  be  useful  as  weapons.  And 
in  the  end,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  after  incalculable  ages, 
here  we  are ! 

Now  these  lemurs  had  certain  instincts  and  habits  of 
life.  Let  us  define  our  terms.   By  an  instinct  I  mean, 

1  Lecture  at  Bedford  College. 


HERD  INSTINCT  AND  THE  WAR  47 

following  the  exposition  of  Dr.  McDougall,  an  innate 
psycho-physical  disposition  to  notice  objects  of  a  certain 
class,  to  feel  about  them  in  certain  ways  and  to  act  corre- 
spondingly. They  would  notice  an  enemy,  hate  him,  and 
spit  at  him;  notice  an  object  that  was  good  to  eat,  desire 
it,  and  eat  it.  They  made  love,  they  protected  their 
young,  they  defended  their  group  against  other  groups. 
And  primitive  man  inherited,  with  modifications,  their 
instincts,  and  we  have  similarly  inherited  his.  Some  of 
them  were  generally  desirable,  and  are  consequently 
admitted  and  encouraged;  others  were  generally  un- 
desirable, and  have  been  habitually  denied  and  sup- 
pressed in  our  conscious  life,  only  to  break  out  in  dreams, 
in  fits  of  insanity  or  passion,  or  more  subtly  in  self- 
deception.  But,  suppressed  or  unsuppressed,  man's  in- 
stincts form  the  normal  motive  force  in  his  life,  though 
the  direction  of  that  force  may  from  time  to  time  be 
controlled  by  conscious  reason. 

From  this  point  of  view  I  wish  to  consider  what  has 
happened  to  us  in  England  since  August  4,  1914.  For 
that  something  has  happened  is  quite  clear.  There  is  an 
inward  change,  which  some  people  praise  and  some 
blame.  There  is  a  greater  seriousness  in  life,  less  com- 
plaining, less  obvious  selfishness,  and  more  hardihood. 
There  is  a  universal  power  of  self-sacrifice  whose  exist- 
ence we  never  suspected  before:  on  every  side  young 
men  are  ready  to  go  and  face  death  for  their  country, 
and  parents  are  ready  to  let  them  go.  There  is  more 
brotherhood  and  more  real  democracy;  and  at  the  same 
time,  a  quality  of  which  we  stood  in  much  need,  far 
more  discipline  and  obedience. 

This  makes  a  very  strong  case  on  the  good  side.  Yet, 


48  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

on  the  other,  you  will  find  generally  that  reformers  and 
idealists  are  disheartened.  Friends  of  peace,  of  women's 
causes,  of  legal  reform,  of  the  mitigation  of  cruelty  to 
animals,  are  all  reduced  to  something  like  impotence. 
One  hears  the  statement  that  "  there  is  no  Christianity 
left."  The  very  increase  of  power  and  devotion  which 
has  occurred  is  directed,  so  some  say,  to  the  service  of 
evil.  The  same  process  has  taken  place  in  Germany,  and 
has  there  apparently  reached  a  higher  degree  of  inten- 
sity. To  leave  aside  its  more  insane  manifestations,  a 
Danish  friend  sends  me  the  following  quotation  from 
a  German  religious  poet,  much  admired  in  evangelical 
circles:  "We  have  become  the  nation  of  wrath.  .  .  .  We 
accomplish  the  almighty  will  of  God,  and  will  vengefully 
wreak  the  demands  of  His  righteousness  on  the  godless, 
filled  with  sacred  fury.  .  .  .  We  are  bound  together  like  a 
scourge  of  punishment  whose  name  is  War.  We  flame 
like  lightning.  Our  wounds  blossom  like  rose-gardens  at 
the  gate  of  heaven.  Thanks  be  to  Thee,  God  Almighty! 
Thy  wrathful  awakening  does  away  with  our  sins.  As  the 
iron  in  Thy  hand  we  smite  all  our  enemies  on  the  cheek- 
bone." Another  poet,  a  clergyman,  prays  that  the  Ger- 
mans may  not  fall  into  the  temptation  of  carrying  out 
the  judgements  of  God's  wrath  with  too  great  mildness. 
Now  the  state  of  mind  which  these  poems  reveal  —  and 
I  dare  say  they  could  be  paralleled  or  nearly  paralleled 
in  England  —  is  compatible  with  great  self-sacrifice  and 
heroism,  but  it  is  certainly  not  what  one  would  call 
wholesome. 

In  order  to  understand  this  change  as  a  whole,  it  is 
necessary  to  analyze  it;  and  I  would  venture  to  suggest 
that,  in  the  main,  it  consists  simply  in  an  immense  stimu- 
lation of  the  herd  or  group  instincts,  though,  of  course, 


HERD  INSTINCT  AND  THE  WAR  49 

other  instincts  are  also  involved.  For  the  present,  let  us 
neither  praise  nor  blame,  but  simply  analyze.  At  the 
end  we  may  have  some  conclusion  to  draw. 

Man  is  by  nature  a  gregarious  animal  and  is  swayed 
by  herd  instincts,  as  a  gregarious  animal  must  be;  but  of 
course  they  are  greatly  modified.  Outside  mankind  we 
find  these  instincts  in  various  grades  of  development. 
They  show  strongest  in  ants  and  bees,  with  their  com- 
munal life  of  utter  self-sacrifice,  utter  ruthlessness.  I  see 
that  Professor  Julian  Huxley,  in  his  book  on  "The 
Individual  in  the  Animal  Kingdom/'  doubts  whether 
among  ants  the  single  ant  or  the  whole  ant-heap  is  really 
the  individual.  I  remember  a  traveller  in  northern  Aus- 
tralia narrating  how  he  once  saw  a  procession  of  white 
ants  making  towards  his  camp,  and  to  head  them  off 
sprinkled  across  their  line  of  advance  a  train  of  blue- 
stone,  or  sulphate  of  copper.  And  instead  of  turning 
aside,  each  ant  as  he  came  up  threw  himself  on  the 
horribly  corrosive  stuff  and  devoured  it  till  he  fell 
dead;  and  presently  the  main  army  marched  on  over  a 
line  consisting  no  longer  of  bluestone,  but  of  dead 
ants. 

The  instinct  is  less  overpowering  in  cattle,  horses, 
wolves,  etc.  Certain  wild  cattle  in  South  Africa  are 
taken  by  Galton  as  types  of  it.  In  ordinary  herd  life  they 
show  no  interest  in  one  another,  much  less  any  mutual 
affection.  But  if  one  is  taken  out  of  the  herd  and  put  by 
himself  he  pines,  and  when  he  is  taken  back  to  the  herd 
he  shoves  and  nozzles  to  the  very  centre  of  it.  Wolves, 
again,  will  fight  for  their  pack,  but  not  from  mutual 
affection.  If  the  pack  is  not  threatened,  they  will  readily 
fight  and  kill  one  another.  A  dog  in  domesticated  condi- 
tions is  especially  interesting.  He  has  been  taken  away 


50  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

from  his  pack,  but  he  retains  his  fundamental  habits. 
He  barks  to  call  his  mates  on  every  emergency,  even  if 
barking  frightens  his  prey  away.  He  sniffs  at  every- 
thing when  he  is  out  walking,  because  he  has  wanted  so 
long  to  find  his  way  home  to  the  lost  pack.  His  real  pack 
is  now  artificial,  grouped  round  his  master.  It  will  take 
in  his  master's  friends  and  house-companions,  including 
quite  possibly  various  animals  such  as  cats  and  rabbits. 
Meantime  he  rejects  the  strange  man  and  cheerfully  kills 
the  strange  cat  or  rabbit.  His  delightful  friendliness  and 
sympathy  are  of  course  due  to  his  herd  habits.  A  cat 
has  no  herd.  She  has  always  "  walked  alone." 

Now  man  satisfies  his  herd  instinct  by  many  groups, 
mainly  artificial.  Like  the  dog,  he  may  take  in  other 
animals.  In  ordinary  life  the  group  of  which  he  is  most 
conscious  is  his  social  class,  especially  if  it  is  threatened  in 
any  way.  Clergymen,  landowners,  teachers,  coal-miners 
tend,  as  the  phrase  is,  to  hang  together.  They  have  the 
same  material  interests  and  the  same  habits  of  life. 
Again,  there  may  be  local  groups,  counties  or  villages, 
or  groups  dependent  on  ideas  and  beliefs,  a  church,  a 
party  in  politics,  a  clique  in  art.  But  of  all  groups,  far 
the  strongest  when  it  is  once  roused  is  the  nation,  and  it 
is  the  nation  that  is  roused  now. 

Normally  men  of  science  form  a  group,  so  do  theolo- 
gians. But  now  they  feel  no  longer  as  men  of  science  or 
theologians,  they  feel  as  Englishmen  or  Germans.  I  see 
that  the  Archbishop  of  Munich  has  expressed  a  doubt 
whether  "any  appreciable  number  of  Belgian  priests" 
have  been  "irregularly  killed"  by  German  soldiers. 
There  is  an  absence  of  class  feeling  about  this  remark 
which  few  clergymen  could  attain  in  peace  time.  I  see 
that  even  the  German  Jesuits  are  sharply  differing  from 


HERD  INSTINCT  AND  THE  WAR  51 

the  rest  of  the  Jesuits,  an  order  famous  throughout  his- 
tory for  its  extreme  cohesion  and  discipline.  The  only 
bodies  that  have  at  all  asserted  themselves  against  the 
main  current  of  feeling  in  the  various  nations  have  been 
a  few  isolated  Intellectuals  and  some  small  groups  of 
International  Socialists.  It  was  easier  for  these  last,  since 
with  them  Internationalism  was  not  only  a  principle,  but 
a  habit,  and,  besides,  they  were  accustomed  in  ordinary 
life  to  be  against  their  own  government  and  to  differ 
from  their  neighbours. 

In  the  main,  what  has  happened  is  very  simple.  In  all 
wild  herds  we  find  that  the  strength  of  this  instinct  de- 
pends upon  the  need  for  it.  As  soon  as  the  herd  is  in 
danger,  the  herd  instinct  flames  up  in  passion  to  defend 
it.  The  members  of  the  herd  first  gather  together,  and 
then  fight  or  fly.  This  is  what  has  happened  to  us.  Our 
herd  is  in  danger,  and  our  natural  herd  instinct  is 
aflame.  Let  us  notice  certain  different  ways  in  which  it 
operates. 

First,  the  herd  unites.  Wolves  who  are  quarrelling 
cease  when  menaced  by  a  common  enemy.  Cattle  and 
horses  draw  together.  We  in  England  find  ourselves 
a  band  of  brothers;  and  the  same  of  course  occurs 
in  Germany.  Indeed,  it  probably  occurs  even  more 
strongly  there,  since  all  herd  emotions  there  tend  to  be 
passionately  expressed  and  officially  encouraged.  Those 
who  are  ordinarily  separate  have  drawn  together.  Can- 
ada, Australia,  India,  even  Crown  colonies  like  Fiji, 
seem  to  be  feeling  a  common  emotion.  A  year  or  so  ago 
one  might  see  in  the  advertisements  of  employment  in 
Canadian  newspapers  the  words,  "No  English  need 
apply."  You  would  not  find  them  now.  Even  the 
United  States  have  drawn  close  to  us.  Of  course  in  part 


52  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

this  is  due  to  the  goodness  of  our  cause,  to  sympathy 
with  the  wrongs  of  Belgium,  and  the  like.  Most  neutrals 
are  somewhat  on  our  side.  But  herd  instinct  is  clearly 
present;  or  why  do  the  German- Americans  side  with  the 
Germans? 

Even  those  who  are  ordinarily  at  strife  have  drawn 
together.  Before  the  war  our  whole  people  seemed  at 
strife  with  itself,  how  far  from  natural  causes  and  how 
far  from  definite  intrigue  on  the  part  of  Germany  history 
will  doubtless  show.  We  had  the  Militant  Suffragists,  we 
had  an  utterly  extraordinary  number  of  strikes  and  a 
great  deal  of  rebellion  against  trade-union  leaders,  we 
had  trouble  in  India,  terrific  threats  in  Ireland.  And  on 
the  whole,  now  these  various  enemies  have  "  made  it  up." 
Of  course  it  was  much  harder  for  them  than  for  those 
who  were  merely  separated  by  distance.  There  were 
serious  obstacles  in  the  way;  habits  of  anger,  habits  of 
suspicion ;  often  the  mere  routine  of  party  attack  which 
comes  natural  to  small  groups  in  strong  opposition  to  a 
government.  As  a  journalist  said  to  me :  "  I  mostly  keep 
the  truce  all  right ;  but  sometimes,  when  one  is  tired  and 
has  nothing  particular  to  say,  one  drops  into  abusing 
McKenna." 

The  chief  problem  that  arises  in  this  general  drawing 
together  is  the  problem  of  fidelity  to  the  lesser  herd. 
Sometimes  there  is  no  clash  between  the  lesser  and  the 
greater.  A  man's  emotion  towards  his  family,  his  asso- 
ciates, his  native  district,  causes  as  a  rule  no  clash.  On 
the  contrary,  it  is  usually  kindled  and  strengthened  by 
some  sort  of  analogy  or  some  emotional  infection.  The 
emotions  of  loyalty,  of  love  to  one's  neighbours  and  sur- 
roundings, are  all  stirred;  and  the  family  emotions  in 
particular,  being  themselves  very  ancient  and  deep- 


HERD  INSTINCT  AND  THE  WAR  53 

rooted  in  our  instinctive  nature,  have  grown  stronger 
together  with  those  of  the  herd. 

But  often  there  is  a  clash.  For  instance,  an  individual 
who  has  recently  been  in  Germany  and  made  close  friends 
there  will,  out  of  loyalty  to  this  friendship,  rebel  against 
the  current  anti-German  passion,  and  so  become  ''pro- 
German."  I  mean  by  "  pro-German/'  not  one  who  wishes 
the  Germans  to  win,  —  I  know  of  none  such,  —  but  one 
who  habitually  interprets  doubtful  questions  in  a  way 
sympathetic  to  Germany.  Again,  there  are  a  few  people 
who,  on  one  ground  or  another,  disapproved  of  the 
declaration  of  war.  They  are  attacked  and  maligned: 
their  friends  naturally  stand  by  them.  The  whole  group 
hits  back  angrily  and  becomes,  in  the  same  sense,  pro- 
German.  Then  there  are  people  who  are  influenced  by 
a  peculiar  form  of  pugnacity  which  is  often  miscalled 
"love  of  justice."  It  is  really  a  habit  of  irritation  at  ex- 
cess which  finds  vent  not  in  justice,  but  in  counter-excess. 
"So-and-so  is  overpraised;  for  Heaven's  sake,  let  us 
bring  him  down  a  peg !  Every  fool  I  meet  is  emotional- 
ized about  the  German  treatment  of  Belgium;  can  we 
not  somehow  —  somehow  —  show  that  no  harm  was 
done,  or  that  Belgium  deserved  it,  or  at  least  that  it  was 
all  the  fault  of  the  Russians?  "  People  of  these  types  and 
others  form,  some  generous  and  some  perverse,  both 
here  and  in  Germany,  a  protesting  small  herd  in  reaction 
against  the  great  herd.  Thus  the  herd  draws  together, 
though  lesser  and  protesting  herds  within  it  may  do  the 
same. 

Secondly,  in  time  of  danger  the  individual  subordi- 
nates himself  to  the  herd.  He  ceases  to  make  claims  upon 
it,  he  desires  passionately"  to  serve  it.  He  is  miserable 


54  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

and  unsatisfied  if  there  is  no  public  work  found  for  him. 
Discipline  consequently  becomes  easy  and  automatic.  I 
know  of  one  case  where  a  number  of  recruits  in  a  certain 
new  regiment  were  drawn  from  a  local  trade  union  of 
pugnacious  traditions.  One  of  them  was  punished  for 
something  or  other.  The  rest  instinctively  proposed  to 
strike,  but  even  as  they  proposed  it  found  themselves  in 
the  grip  of  a  stronger  instinct.  They  hesitated  for  an 
instant  and  then  obeyed  orders.  Again,  I  seem  to  have 
noticed  that  there  is  in  most  people  an  active  desire  to 
be  ordered  about.  We  like  a  drill-sergeant  to  speak  to  us 
severely,  much  as  you  speak  to  a  dog  which  has  not  yet 
been  naughty  but  looks  as  if  he  meant  to  be.  In  ordi- 
nary life,  when  a  man  has  to  obey  and  submit,  he  feels 
small.  The  action  is  accompanied  by  what  Mr.  Mc- 
Dougall  calls  "negative  self -feeling."  But  now,  it  seems, 
we  actually  have  a  sense  of  pride  when  we  are  ordered 
about.  It  makes  us  feel  that  we  are  really  serving. 

We  may  notice  here  a  curious  side-movement,  a 
counter-action  to  the  main  stream  making  for  union. 
Such  counter-actions  are,  of  course,  always  to  be  ex- 
pected and  need  cause  no  surprise.  Why  is  it  that, 
among  these  great  steady  forces  of  union  and  mutual 
trust,  we  have  sudden  flashes  of  the  very  opposite,  es- 
pecially of  wild  suspicions  of  the  herd-leaders?  I  do  not 
mean  mere  spy-mania.  That  is  simple  enough,  a  morbid 
excess  of  a  perfectly  natural  feeling  directed  against  the 
common  enemy.  You  desire  passionately  to  capture  a 
real  German  spy;  and,  since  you  cannot  find  one,  you 
make  up  a  bogus  one  and  capture  him.  I  mean  a  similar 
mania,  though  much  weaker  and  rarer,  directed  against 
the  herd  itself:  the  semi-insane  suspicions  of  Prince 
Louis  of  Battenberg,  of  Lord  Haldane,  and  of  persons 


HERD  INSTINCT  AND  THE  WAR  55 

even  more  exalted.  Partly,  these  impulses  are  the  re- 
mains of  old  quarrels  in  feeble  minds.  But  partly  they 
have  a  real  biological  origin.  For  while,  in  ordinary 
dangers,  the  safety  of  the  future  race  depends  on  the 
individuals  serving  and  trusting  their  herd,  there  are 
moments  when  the  only  chance  of  safety  lies  in  their 
deserting  and  rejecting  it.  If  once  the  herd  is  really  con- 
quered and  in  the  power  of  the  enemy,  then  the  cry  must 
be  "Sauve  qui  peut"  and  the  panic  which  is  generally 
disastrous  is  now  a  protection.  Thus  these  small  cases 
of  panic,  though  practically  unimportant,  are  psycho- 
logically interesting  and  have  their  proper  evolutionist 
explanation. 

So  far  we  have  found,  first,  that  the  herd  draws  to- 
gether, and  next,  that  the  individual  subordinates  him- 
self to  the  herd.  Thirdly,  it  seems  clear  that  this  closer 
herd  union  has  an  effect  upon  the  emotions,  and  a  two- 
fold effect.  As  all  readers  of  psychology  know,  herd 
union  intensifies  all  the  emotions  which  are  felt  in  com- 
mon. The  effect  is  so  strong  and  so  striking  that  some 
writers  have  treated  it  as  a  kind  of  mystery  and  de- 
scribed it  in  language  that  is  almost  mythological.  But 
there  does  not  seem  to  be  anything  inexplicable  in  the 
matter.  Emotion  is  infectious.  Each  member  of  a  herd 
which  is  in  the  grasp  of  some  emotion  is  himself  in  a 
" suggestible' '  state  and  is  also  exerting  " suggestion" 
upon  his  neighbours.  They  are  all  directly  stimulating 
his  emotion  and  he  theirs.  And  doubtless  we  should  also 
remember  that,  herd  emotion  being  itself  a  very  old  and 
deep-rooted  animal  affection,  its  stimulation  has  prob- 
ably a  sympathetic  effect  on  all  kinds  of  similar  dis- 
turbances, such  as  fear  and  anger  and  animal  desires  of 
various  sorts. 


56  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

Furthermore,  herd  union  often  gives  the  suppressed 
subconscious  forces  their  chance  of  satisfaction.  Hence 
come  the  atrocities  committed  by  crowds.  Some  dor- 
mant desire,  existing  in  your  nature  but  normally  sup- 
pressed, is  suddenly  encouraged  by  suggestion.  You  see 
a  look  in  your  neighbour's  face,  and  he  in  yours;  and  in 
a  flash  you  both  know  what  that  look  means.  You  dare 
to  own  a  feeling  which,  in  your  normal  condition,  you 
would  have  strangled  unborn.  Suppressed  instinct  calls 
to  instinct  across  the  gulf  of  personality,  and  the  in- 
famous thing  is  half  done.  For  the  herd,  besides  tempt- 
ing you,  also  offers  you  a  road  of  impunity.  You  can 
repudiate  responsibility  afterwards.  It  is  never  exactly 
you  that  really  did  the  thing.  It  is  the  crowd  that  did 
it,  and  the  crowd  has  now  ceased  to  exist.  M.  Lenotre, 
in  his  studies  of  the  French  Revolution,  has  commented 
on  the  somewhat  ghastly  fact  that  in  moments  of  herd 
excitement  people  on  the  verge  of  lunacy,  people  touched 
by  persecution  mania,  by  suspicion  mania,  by  actual 
homicidal  mania,  are  apt  to  become  leaders  and  inspire 
confidence.  The  same  phenomenon  has  been  noticed  in 
certain  revolutionary  movements  in  Russia. 

In  England,  fortunately,  there  has  been  so  far  almost 
no  field  for  this  kind  of  dangerous  herd  excitement. 
There  has  been  of  course  some  ferocity  in  speech,  a  com- 
paratively harmless  safety-valve  for  bad  feelings,  and  in 
some  persons  a  preferable  alternative  to  apoplexy;  but 
no  violent  actions  and,  I  think,  among  decent  people, 
extraordinarily  little  vindictiveness. 

But  herd  union  does  not  intensify  all  emotions.  It 
intensifies  those  which  are  felt  in  common,  but  it  actually 
deadens  and  shuts  down  those  which  are  only  felt  by  the 
individual.  The  herd  is,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  habitually 


HERD  INSTINCT  AND  THE  WAR  57 

callous  towards  the  sufferings  of  its  individual  mem- 
bers, and  it  infects  each  member  with  its  own  callous- 
ness. To  take  a  trifling  instance,  a  friend  writes  to  me 
thus:  "I  discovered  one  day  on  a  march  that  my  boot 
was  hurting  me;  after  an  hour  or  so  it  became  obvious 
that  my  foot  was  bleeding.  In  ordinary  times  I  should 
have  made  a  fuss  and  insisted  on  sympathy,  and  cer- 
tainly not  gone  on  walking  for  several  miles.  But  as  it 
was,  moving  in  a  steady  mass  of  people  who  were  uninter- 
ested in  my  boots,  and  I  in  theirs,  I  marched  on  without 
making  any  remark  or  even  feeling  much.,, 

The  ramifications  of  this  herd  callousness  are  very 
curious  and  intricate.  It  acts  even  with  fear,  that  most 
contagious  of  emotions.  The  herd  deadens  the  fears  of 
the  individual  so  long  as  they  do  not  become  real  herd 
fears.  Untrained  troops  will  advance  in  close  masses.  It 
needs  good  troops  to  advance  individually  in  open  order. 
The  close  masses  are  much  more  dangerous  and  the 
open  order  less  so,  but  in  the  close  mass  the  herd  is  all 
round  you,  buttressing  you  and  warming  you,  and  it 
deadens  your  private  fear.  It  may  also  be  that  there  is 
here  some  hereditary  instinct  at  work,  derived  from  a 
time  when  the  act  of  huddling  together  was  a  real  pro- 
tection, as  it  is  with  sheep  and  cattle  attacked  by  wolves. 

If  this  herd  callousness  acts  with  fear,  it  acts  of  course 
far  more  with  scruples  or  pities.  The  first  scruple  or 
ruth  or  criticism  of  the  herd  must  rise  in  the  breast  of 
some  individual.  If,  by  good  luck,  at  the  same  moment 
it  occurs  to  some  dozen  other  men,  it  has  a  chance  of 
asserting  itself.  Otherwise  there  is  only  the  single  unit 
standing  up,  in  his  infinite  weakness,  against  the  great 
herd.  The  scruple  is  silenced  and  dies. 

Of  course,  in  actual  warfare  this  callousness  is  im- 


58  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

mensely  increased  by  the  nature  of  the  work  which  the 
combatants  are  doing,  and  the  immense  change  in  their 
habitual  standard  of  expectation.  You  cannot  always 
be  pitying  people,  or  you  would  never  get  on  with  your 
business.  A  friend  of  mine,  a  clever  and  kindly  man,  told 
me  how  he  and  his  men,  after  a  long  spell  in  the  trenches, 
utterly  tired  and  chilled  and  dropping  with  sleep,  had 
at  last  got  into  their  billets  —  a  sort  of  warm  cellar 
where  they  could  just  squeeze  in.    They  heard  the 
scream  of  shrapnel  sweeping  the  street  outside,* and 
some  soldiers  of  another  regiment  and  nationality  ran 
up  to  the  door  begging  for  admittance  and  shelter.  With 
one  voice,  so  my  friend  said,  he  and  his  men  growled  at 
them  and  slammed  the  door  in  their  faces.  It  was  their 
own  cellar,  and  these  people  were  intruders.   And  they 
shut  them  out  into  the  shrapnel  much  as,  in  ordinary 
circumstances,  they  would  perhaps  have  felt  justified  in 
shutting  them  out  into  the  rain.   The  strangest  devel- 
opment of  all  is  perhaps  the  disregard  of  the  herd  for 
its  wounded,  and  the  readiness  of  the  wounded  them- 
selves to  be  so  disregarded.   Of  course  there  are  abun- 
dant cases  of  the  opposite  sort,  where  individuals  show 
the  utmost  regard  for  the  wounded,  risk  their  lives  for 
them,  and  count  no  labour  too  hard  for  their  sake.  But 
I  have  certainly  met  with  well-authenticated  stories, 
notably  of  incidents  in  the  German  and  Japanese  and 
Turkish  armies,  which  seem  to  take  one  back  to  some 
rather  primitive  instincts.   The  true  animal  herd  hates 
its  wounded  and  kills  them;  cattle,  wolves,  porpoises, 
every  herd  of  gregarious  animals  does  the  same.    Of 
course  it  hates  them.  They  not  only  tend  to  hamper  its 
movements,  but  they  present  vividly  to  its  eyes  and 
senses  the  very  thing  that  it  most  loathes  —  its  own 


HERD  INSTINCT  AND  THE  WAR  59 

blood  and  pain.  And  one  finds  also  curious  instances 
where  the  wounded  man  himself  is  so  absorbed  in  the 
general  herd  emotion  that  he  insists,  even  angrily,  on 
being  left  alone. 

Thus,  under  the  influence  of  herd  union,  common 
emotions  are  intensified,  individual  emotions  deadened. 

Now  thought,  unlike  emotion,  is  markedly  individual 
and  personal.  It  is  not  infectious.  It  is  communicated  by 
articulate  language.  The  herd  growls,  cries,  sobs,  some- 
times laughs;  but  it  finds  speech  very  difficult.  Again, 
thought  is  critical,  and  the  herd  wants  unanimity,  not 
criticism.  Consequently  herd  union  deadens  thought. 

True,  the  herd  leader  must  think  and  plan,  and  the 
herd  will  obey  him.  In  an  organized  army,  where  dis- 
cipline and  organization  powerfully  counteract  many  of 
the  normal  herd  characteristics,  thought  sits  enthroned 
and  directs  the  whole  mass.  But  it  is  a  special  kind  of 
thought,  under  central  control  and  devoted  simply  to 
attaining  the  purposes  of  the  herd.  Other  thought  is 
inhibited. 

For  instance,  if  the  herd  is  angry,  it  is  quite  simply 
angry  with  another  herd.  This  state  of  mind  is  normal 
among  savages  and  primitive  men.  Some  one  belonging 
to  a  tribe  over  the  river  has  speared  one  of  our  cows, 
therefore  we  catch  some  other  person  belonging  to  a 
different  tribe  over  the  river  and  club  him  on  the  head. 
Herd  justice  is  satisfied.  It  only  sees  things  in  herds. 
"The  Germans"  did  so-and-so;  therefore  punish  "the 
Germans":  "the  English"  did  so-and-so;  therefore 
punish  "the  English."  Whenever  a  herd  is  offended  by 
some  action,  it  is  made  happy  by  punishing  as  dramati- 
cally as  possible  several  people  who  did  not  do  it.  Collec- 
tive anger,  collective  punishment,  is  always  opposed  to 


00  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

justice,  because  justice  applies  only  to  individuals.  And 
again,  the  more  angry  a  herd  is,  the  less  evidence  it  needs 
that  there  is  due  cause  for  its  anger.  Accuse  a  man  of 
some  irregularity  in  his  accounts,  and  the  herd  will  ex- 
pect to  have  the  charge  duly  proved.  But  accuse  him  of 
having  drenched  little  girls  in  paraffin  and  set  fire  to 
them,  and  the  herd  will  very  likely  tear  him  —  or  some 
one  else  —  to  pieces  at  once  without  further  evidence. 

By  this  process  of  killing  out  thought  the  herd  sinks 
all  its  members  in  itself  and  assimilates  them  to  an 
average.  And  this  average  is  in  some  ways  above  but  in 
most  considerably  below  that  of  the  average  man  in 
normal  life.  For  it  is  that  of  the  average  man  not  think- 
ing but  merely  feeling.  Only  the  leader  has  the  function 
of  thinking;  hence  his  enormous  and  uncanny  power. 

Lastly,  let  us  consider  the  effect  of  this  herd  union  on 
religion.  At  first  sight  the  answer  would  seem  simple. 
Religion  is  a  network  of  primitive  collective  emotions, 
and  any  stimulus  which  works  upon  such  emotions  is 
likely,  by  force  of  sympathy,  to  rouse  religious  emotion 
at  the  same  time.  At  any  rate  some  of  the  causes  which 
have  recently  roused  herd  emotion  in  Europe  are  just 
the  causes  on  which  religious  emotion  is  often  said  to  be 
based.  Man  has  been  made  to  feel  the  presence  of  terrific 
forces  over  which  he  has  no  control.  He  has  been  taught, 
crudely  and  violently,  his  dependence  on  the  unknown. 
On  this  line  of  reasoning,  the  religious  life  of  the  world 
should  be  greatly  intensified.  Yet  there  are  serious  con- 
siderations leading  to  the  opposite  conclusion.  A  world 
so  mad  and  evil,  however  terrific,  can  hardly  seem  like 
the  mirror  in  which  to  see  God.  I  remember  a  dreadful 
incident  in  one  of  the  consular  reports  of  the  Armenian 


HERD  INSTINCT  AND  THE  WAR  61 

massacres  of  1895.  At  that  time  the  universal  dread  and 
horror  throughout  Armenia  sent  most  people  praying 
day  and  night  in  the  churches.  But  the  report  tells  of 
one  woman  who  sat  by  the  road  and  refused  to  pray. 
"Do  you  not  see  what  has  happened?"  she  said.  "God 
has  gone  mad.  It  is  no  use  to  pray  to  Him."  I  have 
myself  talked  on  different  days  to  two  soldiers  who  gave 
vivid  accounts  of  the  hideous  proceedings  of  the  war 
in  Flanders  and  of  their  own  feelings  of  terror.  Their 
accounts  agreed,  but  the  conclusions  they  drew  were 
different.  One  man  ended  by  saying  with  a  sort  of  gasp: 
"  It  made  you  believe  in  God,  I  can  tell  you."  The  other, 
a  more  thoughtful  man,  said:  "It  made  you  doubt  the 
existence  of  God."  I  think  that  the  effect  of  this  year 
of  history  will  be  to  discourage  the  higher  kind  of  reli- 
gion and  immensely  strengthen  the  lower. 

Let  me  try  to  analyze  this  conclusion  more  closely, 
and  see  what  we  mean  in  this  context  by  "higher"  and 
"lower."  I  hope  that  most  of  my  hearers  will  agree  with 
me,  or  at  least  not  disagree  violently,  in  assuming  that 
the  attributes  which  a  man  ascribes  to  his  God  are  con- 
ditioned by  his  own  mind,  its  limitations  and  its  direc- 
tion. I  could,  if  necessary,  quote  at  least  one  Father  of 
the  Church  in  support  of  such  a  view.  Thus  the  God 
whom  a  man  worships  is  in  some  form  a  projection  of  his 
own  personality.  The  respective  Gods  of  a  seventeenth- 
century  Puritan,  a  Quaker,  an  Arab,  a  South-Sea  Is- 
lander, will  all  differ  as  their  worshippers  differ,  and  the 
human  qualities  attributed  to  each  will  be  projections 
of  the  emotions  of  the  worshipper.  Thus,  the  lower,  and 
often  the  more  passionate,  religion  will  be  directed  to- 
wards a  God  who  is  a  projection  of  the  worshipper's  own 
terrors  and  angers  and  desires  and  selfishness.    The 


62  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

higher  religion  weaves  its  conception  of  God  more  out  of 
its  duties  and  its  aspirations.  To  one  of  those  soldiers 
whom  I  mentioned  above  God  was  evidently  a  Being 
of  pure  terror,  fitly  mirrored  by  the  action  of  a  host  of 
high-explosive  shells.  To  many  people  in  great  oppres- 
sion, again,  God  is  almost  an  incarnation  of  their  desire 
for  revenge:  let  those  who  doubt  it  read  the  history  of 
persecution.  To  others,  an  incarnation  of  Self.  Some 
of  you  will  have  seen  Mr.  Dyson's  finely  tragic  cartoon 
entitled  "Alone  with  his  God."  It  represents  the 
Kaiser  kneeling,  a  devout  and  fully  armed  figure,  before 
another  Kaiser  exactly  the  same  in  dress  and  feature, 
but  gigantic,  august,  enthroned  amid  the  incense  of 
ruined  towns  and  burning  churches,  blindly  staring  and 
inexpressibly  sad.  It  is  a  picture  to  ponder  on. 

All  these  emotions,  the  self-worship,  the  hate,  the 
revenge,  the  terror,  will  be  stimulated,  and  so  will  the 
kind  of  religion  that  depends  on  them.  The  higher  reli- 
gion, of  which  it  is  less  easy  to  speak,  which  expresses 
itself  in  the  love  of  righteousness,  in  the  sense  of  one's 
own  imperfection,  in  the  aspiration  after  a  better  life  and 
a  world  with  more  love  in  it .  .  .  that  sort  of  religion,  I 
fear,  will  chiefly  come  in  reaction.  It  cannot  be  the 
main  flood.  There  is  too  much  reflection  in  it,  too  much 
inhibition.  The  main  flood  of  herd  emotion  will  sweep 
over  it  for  the  time  being,  but  it  will  not  die.  There  is  a 
strange  life  in  the  things  of  the  spirit. 

I  suggested  at  the  beginning  of  this  very  rough  and 
sketchy  analysis  that  perhaps  at  the  end  we  might  be 
able  to  pass  some  definite  moral  judgement  on  the 
change  which  has  taken  place  in  us,  and  say  whether  it 
is  a  good  or  a  bad  change.  But  I  fear  that  the  suggestion 


HERD  INSTINCT  AND  THE  WAR  63 

has  not  been  realized.  Herd  instinct  in  itself  is  neither 
good  nor  bad.  It  is  simply  part  of  the  stuff  of  life,  an 
immense  store  of  vitality  out  of  which  both  good  and 
evil,  extreme  good  and  extreme  evil,  can  spring. 

Thus  it  is  impossible  to  say  without  qualification  that 
we  ought  to  rejoice  in  this  stimulation  of  our  herd 
instincts  or  that  we  ought  rigorously  to  master  and 
reject  it.  Neither  alternative  is  sufficient.  We  must  do 
this  and  not  leave  the  other  undone.  We  must  accept 
gladly  the  quickened  pulse,  the  new  strength  and  cour- 
age, the  sense  of  brotherhood,  the  spirit  of  discipline  and 
self-sacrifice.  All  these  things  make  life  a  finer  thing. 
It  is  nothing  against  a  particular  emotion  that  mankind 
shares  it  with  the  ape  and  the  tiger.  Gorillas  are  famous 
for  their  family  life,  and  tigresses  are,  up  to  their  lights, 
exemplary  mothers.  As  regards  herd  feeling  in  particular, 
we  should  realize  that  even  in  its  most  unthinking  forms 
it  generally  makes  a  man  kinder  and  more  trustworthy 
towards  his  immediate  neighbours  and  daily  associates; 
the  evil  side  of  it  comes  into  play  much  more  rarely, 
since  it  is  directed  against  the  far-off  alien  herd  which  is 
seldom  met  or  seen. 

And  lastly,  we  should  remember  one  piece  of  certain 
knowledge  which  is  both  immensely  important  and  very 
difficult  to  apply:  that  thwarted  instincts  act  like  poison 
in  human  nature,  and  a  normal  and  temperate  satisfac- 
tion of  instinct  is  what  keeps  it  sweet  and  sane.  At 
the  present  time,  for  instance,  the  people  whose  minds 
have  turned  sour  and  vicious  are  almost  always  those 
who  can  neither  fight  nor  serve.  The  fighters  and  doc- 
tors and  nurses  and  public  servants  —  as  a  rule  their 
herd  desire  is  satisfied,  and  they  do  their  work  with 
fervour  and  without  bitterness. 


64  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

Yet,  after  all,  we  are  thinking  beings.  If  we  acknowl- 
edge our  instincts,  we  need  not  worship  them.  Thinking 
itself  is  both  an  instinct  and  a  form  of  public  service,  and 
it  is  our  business  to  watch  ourselves.  We  must  see  that 
this  fresh  force  which  we  feel  within  us  is  not  wrongly- 
directed,  and  that  the  higher  and  gentler  elements  of  life 
are  not  swamped  by  this  new  strong  wine.  Millions  of 
men  throughout  Europe  are,  without  stint  or  question, 
offering  all  that  is  in  them  to  the  service  of  their  coun- 
tries and  the  command  of  their  leaders.  We  must  see, 
so  far  as  lies  in  our  power,  that  we  do  not  abuse  that 
heroic  blindness.  And,  among  us  who  remain  at  home, 
we  must  see  as  far  as  possible  that  the  normal  texture 
of  life  is  not  lowered  or  coarsened. 

There  has  been  current  in  England  of  recent  years  a 
reaction  against  reason,  an  avowed  worship  of  instinct 
and  tradition  and  even  prejudice.  The  doctrines  of  this 
reaction  are  in  themselves  fascinating,  and  they  have 
been  preached  by  fascinating  writers.  The  way  of  in- 
stinct and  old  habit  is  so  full  of  ease,  so  facile  and  strong 
and  untroubled.  Look  at  the  faces  of  men  who  are 
wrapped  up  in  some  natural  and  instinctive  purpose. 
Look  at  a  dog  chasing  his  prey,  a  lover  pursuing  his  be- 
loved, a  band  of  vigorous  men  advancing  to  battle,  a 
crowd  of  friends  drinking  and  laughing.  That  shows  us, 
say  the  writers  aforesaid,  what  life  can  be  and  what  it 
ought  to  be.  "  Let  us  not  think  and  question,"  they  say. 
"Let  us  be  healthy  and  direct,  and  not  fret  against  the 
main  current  of  instinctive  feeling  and  tradition." 

In  matters  of  art  such  a  habit  of  mind  may  be  valua- 
ble ;  in  matters  of  truth  or  of  conduct,  it  is,  I  believe,  as 
disastrous  as  it  is  alluring.  True,  the  way  of  instinct  is 
pleasant.    I  happened  once  to  be  waiting  at  a  railway 


HERD  INSTINCT  AND  THE  WAR  65 

station  on  a  summer  afternoon.  There  were  several  rail- 
way men  about,  rather  wearily  engaged  on  work  of  one 
sort  or  another,  when  suddenly  something  happened 
which  made  them  look  alert  and  cheerful  and  put  a 
kindly  smile  on  their  faces.  One  of  them  had  seen  some 
small  animal  —  I  think  a  rat  —  and  a  little  crowd  of 
them  ran  blithely  and  pelted  it  to  death.  One  would 
have  seen  the  same  kindly  and  happy  smile,  the  same 
healthy  vigour,  in  the  people  who  amid  other  circum- 
stances let  loose  their  hunting  instincts  on  runaway 
slaves  or  heretics  or  Jews.  And  the  man  among  them 
who  should  feel  a  qualm,  who  should  check  himself  and 
try  to  think  whether  such  hunting  was  really  a  pleasant 
and  praiseworthy  action,  would,  I  have  little  doubt,  have 
looked  guilty  and  uneasy  and  tongue-tied.  His  face 
would  have  condemned  him.  "Why  should  he  trouble 
himself  with  thinking  and  criticizing?"  people  may  say. 
"Why  not  enjoy  himself  with  his  mates?  Thought  is  just 
as  likely  to  lead  you  wrong  as  feeling  is." 

The  answer  of  mankind  to  such  pleadings  should  be 
firm  and  clear.  Human  reason  is  very  far  from  infallible, 
but  the  only  remedy  for  bad  thinking  is  to  think  better. 
The  question  was  really  settled  for  us  thousands  and 
thousands  of  years  ago,  by  those  little  lemurs  in  the 
marshy  forests.  They  took  not  the  path  of  ease,  but  the 
path  of  hard  brain-work,  and  we  their  children  must  go 
on  with  it.  That  is  the  way  of  life  and  the  bettering  of 
life,  to  think  and  labour  and  build  up;  not  to  glide  with 
the  current.  We  of  the  human  race  have  our  work  in  the 
scheme  of  things;  and  to  do  our  work  we  must  use  all  our 
powers,  especially  our  greatest  powers,  those  of  thinking 
and  judging.  And  even  if  we  deliberately  set  our  faces  in 
the  other  direction,  if  we  yield  to  the  stream  of  instinct 


66  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

and  let  scruples  and  doubts  and  inhibitions  be  swept 
away,  we  shall  not  really  find  life  easier.  At  least  not 
for  long.  For  the  powers  to  which  we  yield  will  only 
demand  more  and  more. 

There  is  one  character  in  Shakespeare,  who  is  often 
taken  as  a  type  —  a  very  unflattering  type,  I  admit  — of 
the  follower  of  the  mere  instincts;  who  feels  the  release, 
the  joy,  the  sense  of  revelation  which  they  bring,  and 
thinks  that  they  will  lead  him  to  glory.  And  I  suspect 
that  some  modern  adorers  of  instinct  as  against  reason 
will  in  the  end  awake  to  disillusion  like  that  of  Cali- 
ban:— 

What  a  thrice-double  ass 
Was  I,  to  take  this  drunkard  for  a  God, 
And  worship  this  dull  fool  I 


IV 

INDIA  AND  THE  WAR* 
(March,  1915) 

Lord  Haldane,  Ladies  and  Gentlemen:  — 

My  task  to-night  is  anything  but  an  easy  one.  I  wish 
to  speak  to  one  half  of  my  audience  only,  though  I  am 
more  than  pleased  that  the  other  half  should  overhear 
all  I  say.  I  want  to  speak  to  the  Indian  students,  and  to 
speak  to  them  as  frankly  as  possible.  It  would  be  easy 
and  very  pleasant  to  expatiate  on  the  achievements  of  the 
Indian  troops  in  the  war  and  the  loyalty  shown  by  the 
Indian  people  to  the  Empire.  But  I  know  that,  if  I  did 
so,  some  Indians  would  be  tempted  to  smile  sardonically, 
and  suspect  that  we  have  taken  this  loyalty  too  much  as 
our  due,  as  a  mere  testimonial  to  our  good  government. 
"We  are  loyal,"  an  Indian  friend  of  mine  once  said  to 
me;  "but  our  loyalty  is  to  India,  not  England."  He 
spoke  only  for  himself,  and  I  do  not  feel  sure  he  was 
right,  even  for  himself.  Loyalty  is  not  a  thing  that  is 
owed.  It  is  a  thing  that  grows,  or  does  not  grow.  When 
people  have  been  comrades  and  worked  together  for 
a  long  time,  —  even  with  occasional  quarrels,  —  there 
rises  normally  among  decent  human  beings  a  bond  of 
trust  and  a  mutual  expectation.  Now,  I  believe  that  be- 
tween India  and  England  that  bond  exists.  We  have  had 
a  long  experience  together  and  mostly  —  mostly  —  we 
have  not  failed  one  another.  In  your  times  of  need,  in 
1  Address  to  Indian  students. 


C8  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

plague  or  famine,  you  confidently  expect  us  to  help,  and 
you  find  even  our  roughest  subalterns  and  haughtiest 
officials  working  their  fingers  to  the  bone  to  help  your 
people.  In  our  times  of  need  —  well,  you  have  not  often 
had  the  full  chance  of  showing  what  you  could  do.  It  is 
one  of  your  grievances,  and  one  with  which  I  warmly 
sympathize.  But  now,  when  we  are  threatened  to  our 
very  life,  you  have  helped.  You  have  given  us  more  than 
we  ever  dared  expect.  That  message  of  the  Indian  kings 
and  princes  which  Mr.  Roberts  read  out  in  the  House  of 
Commons  will  not  easily  be  forgotten. 

We  shall,  I  believe,  win  this  war.  India  will  share  our 
glory.  The  same  battles  will  be  emblazoned  on  the 
banners  of  Indian  and  British  regiments.  But  as  you 
share  our  glory  you  will  share  our  dangers;  and  it  is  a 
time  of  extreme  gravity  that  fronts  us  when  we  look 
into  the  future.  Before  the  war  we  were  disturbed  by 
an  uncertain  and  treacherous  neighbour.  After  the  war 
we  shall  have  a  deadly  enemy.  It  seems  to  me  that 
the  irony  of  history  has  been  at  work  with  Great 
Britain.  As  a  nation  we  emphatically  believe  in  peace. 
We  are  a  people  of  traders  and  manufacturers  who  live 
by  peace.  Our  ideals  and  philosophies  are  all  peaceful. 
Yet  here  we  stand,  in  the  centre  of  an  enormous  war. 
Again,  we  believe  in  freedom,  democracy,  government 
by  consent.  We  have  largely  been  the  teachers  of  those 
ideals  to  the  world.  And  here  we  have  climbed  or 
slipped,  steered  or  drifted,  into  the  administration  of  a 
vast  empire  where  we  are  governing  dozens  of  other 
races  by  a  system  imposed  from  without  and  not  de- 
pendent on  the  consent  of  the  governed.  No  doubt  we 
govern  well.  Some  of  you  will  have  criticisms  to  make, 
but  on  the  whole  most  people  admit  that  we  bring  to  the 


INDIA  AND  THE  WAR  69 

art  of  government  unrivalled  experience  and  a  great 
tradition  of  public  spirit.  But,  granted  that  we  govern 
well,  we  are  still  governing  from  outside,  not  by  means 
of  free  institutions,  and  not  in  the  spirit  that  we  nor- 
mally consider  British.  And  more,  we  do  not  see  —  I 
believe  no  one  in  the  world  sees  —  how  any  other 
method  of  government  is  possible,  except,  indeed,  as 
a  goal  to  work  towards  by  progressive  and  careful 
change.  That  was  the  policy  laid  down  by  the  Liberal 
statesmen  of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  to  that  I  hope 
we  shall  always  hold. 

What  is  the  end  to  be?  —  not  now,  but  hereafter,  when 
you  and  I  are  in  our  graves  to  east  or  west  of  the  great 
ocean,  and  the  disputes,  and  grievances,  and  schemes  of 
policy  that  divided  us  are  forgotten  or  only  remembered 
as  curious  puzzles  for  future  historians  to  make  sense  of. 
Is  the  great  Empire  —  I  wish  there  was  another  word 
for  it  —  of  which  you  and  I  are  part,  for  which  your 
brothers  and  mine  are  shedding  their  blood  together  in 
Flanders,  in  Egypt,  on  the  shores  of  the  Persian  Gulf,  to 
grow  to  be  indeed  a  Commonwealth,  the  greatest  com- 
munity of  free  men  and  women  that  the  world  has  seen? 
Or  is  it  to  fail,  to  end  in  bloodshed  and  ruin?  Or  again  to 
establish  and  stereotype  itself  as  one  more  in  the  great 
world-list  of  despotic  empires,  Babylon,  Egypt,  Rome, 
Byzantium,  which  have  sometimes  lasted  so  long  and 
passed  away  so  unregretted? 

That  is  the  problem  on  which  you  and  we  are  set. 
Neither  of  us  can  reject  it.  From  the  ends  of  the  earth 
two  utterly  different  civilizations,  which  yet  were  closely 
akin  in  their  remote  origins,  have  been  caught  again  by 
the  process  of  world-history  and  set  together  to  this 
enormous  task.  Of  course  we  may  cut  the  problem:  we 


70  FAITH,  WAR,  AND   POLICY 

may  rush  upon  failure  by  mere  fratricide.  We  may  shirk 
it  by  abandoning  our  deepest  ideals.  We  may,  by  great 
labour  and  heroic  patience,  by  constant  hard  thinking 
and  facing  of  facts,  solve  it  successfully  by  building  up 
the  great  Commonwealth  of  which  I  spoke. 

I  do  not  underrate  the  difficulties  that  lie  before  us 
or  the  differences  that  separate  us.  One  of  them  was 
brought  home  to  me  suddenly  and  vividly  some  time  ago. 
There  was  a  meeting  to  discuss  our  Government's  policy 
in  Persia;  one  speaker  defending  the  Government  sug- 
gested that  our  Ministers,  knowing  that  Germany  was 
ready  to  spring  at  the  throat  of  her  rivals  at  the  first 
sign  of  difference  between  them,  thought  the  danger 
of  disintegration  to  Persia  not  too  high  a  price  to  pay  for 
European  peace.  The  plea  was  I  will  not  say  accepted, 
but  considered  reasonable  by  the  meeting.  Then  there 
rose  an  Indian  —  not  a  Parsee.  He  spoke  quietly,  not 
like  a  foreigner  or  one  speaking  a  language  strange  to 
him.  He  seemed  essentially  one  of  us.  And  with  an  emo- 
tion that  vibrated  through  the  room  he  said  that  to  him 
and  his,  European  peace  was  as  dust  in  the  balance  com- 
pared with  the  disintegration  of  Persia.  Many  of  those 
who  applauded  him  must  have  done  so  with  a  certain 
sense  of  guilt,  a  feeling  that  Persia  had  been  to  them  a 
remote,  unknown,  half-civilized  place  which  might,  in 
a  great  crisis,  be  legitimately  sacrificed  to  the  peace  of 
Europe.  We  must  try  to  feel  as  an  Indian  would  about 
such  things  as  this;  or  at  least  to  understand  how  he 
would  feel. 

We  shall  have  clashes  of  that  sort,  clashes  arising 
chiefly  from  facts  of  geography.  We  shall  have  inter- 
minable clashes  of  habit  and  national  character;  clashes 
of  sentiment.    An  instance  is  our  present  war  with 


INDIA  AND  THE  WAR  71 

Turkey.  There  has  been  a  strain  there,  and  both  sides 
have  met  it  with  great  forbearance.  Indian  Moslems 
have  to  look  on  while  we  batter  down  the  door  of  a  great 
Moslem  empire.  We,  because  of  our  relations  to  you, 
have  stood  a  great  deal  more  from  Turkey  than  we 
should  naturally  be  inclined  to  stand.  Yes :  as  the  Ger- 
mans have  pointed  out,  there  are  between  you  and  us 
the  seeds  of  disunion.  Of  course  there  are,  any  one  can 
see  them.  But  there  are  seeds  of  brotherhood  as  well. 
And  it  does  not  follow  that  seeds  of  evil  need  grow  more 
than  other  seeds.  There  is  no  nation  so  uniform,  no 
small  society,  no  band  of  friends,  which  has  not  seeds  of 
disunion  in  it.  It  rests  with  men  themselves,  with  their 
good-will  and  strength  of  character,  whether  amid  the 
million  seeds  which  life  scatters,  one  land  or  another 
comes  to  maturity.  We  must  see  to  it  that  the  seeds 
of  disunion  die  while  the  others  ripen. 

Again,  we  shall  have  clashes  arising  out  of  our  dif- 
ferences of  religion.  The  situation  needs  toleration,  for- 
bearance: yes,  but  it  needs  more  than  that.  It  needs 
active  mutual  appreciation.  If  Christian  and  Moslem, 
Christian  and  Hindu,  are  to  form  a  real  Common- 
wealth, it  is  not  enough  for  one  of  them  to  say  of  the 
others,  "  Such-and-such  is  a  good  fellow  in  spite  of  his 
religion."  You  must  see  that  he  is  good  because  of  his 
religion.  There  is  some  inherent  religious  quality,  some 
piety,  or  devotion,  which  comes  out  in  one  religion  as 
in  another,  and  deserves  respect.  There  are  doubtless 
also  some  special  qualities  which  are  fostered  specially 
by  each  separate  religion.  I  speak  from  a  point  of  view 
which  some  of  you  will  share,  some  not;  though  I  have 
heard  a  missionary  say  nearly  as  much.  To  me  it  seems 
to  the  last  degree  improbable  that  any  one  religion,  or 


72  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

any  one  form  of  culture,  has  the  monopoly  of  truth,  and 
I  expect  Christianity  to  be  improved  by  contact  and 
comparison  of  thought  with  other  great  religions. 

And  further:  if  this  is  true  in  religion,  it  must  be  true 
also  in  civilization.  Look  at  any  single  civilization  as  it 
now  exists.  Look  at  it  with  plenty  of  common  sense, 
but  also  a  little  imagination.  England's  is  a  fine  civiliza- 
tion; it  is  both  stable  and  progressive.  Almost  every  de- 
partment of  it,  if  you  ask  the  experts,  is  demonstrably 
improving. 

Yet  look  through  England.  Go  to  the  hotels  and 
boarding-houses  and  notice  the  people  you  see ;  walk  the 
streets  of  the  great  manufacturing  towns;  go  to  the  places 
of  amusement,  the  theatres  and  music-halls,  and  observe 
the  audiences.  Is  it  a  civilization  with  which  one  can 
feel  content?  Is  it  a  civilization  to  impose,  untempered, 
upon  the  world?  Clearly  not.  And  your  own  civilization 
—  I  will  not  be  impolite  to  it.  I  will  leave  you  yourselves 
to  think  it  over;  to  ask  if  it  is  satisfactory,  if  it  is  free 
from  characteristics  that  fill  you  with  discouragement 
and  even  some  sense  of  shame,  if  it  can. possibly  hold  up 
its  head  as  an  equal  among  the  great  moving  forces  of 
the  modern  world  except  by  drawing  abundantly  on  the 
enlightenment  of  the  West?  I  do  not  know  what  your 
various  answers  will  be.  But  for  my  own  part  I  believe 
that  the  true  development  of  this  vast  heterogeneous 
mass  of  strong  life  which  we  call  the  British  Empire  will 
involve  utilizing  all  the  different  elements  and  contribu- 
tions which  our  various  races  and  societies  can  bring  to 
the  common  stock.  The  process  is  already  going  on.  It 
lies  with  us  to  make  it  into  a  good  process  or  a  bad.  It 
is  very  easy  to  choose  the  bad  and  cheap  and  vulgar 
things  in  one  another's  habits.  The  way  to  do  that  is  to 


INDIA  AND  THE  WAR  73 

begin  by  despising  one  another  and  looking  out  for  the 
contemptible  things.  If  we  respect  one  another,  we  shall 
tend  more  to  notice  and  cultivate  what  is  good. 

One  great  permanent  difficulty  —  you  see  all  my 
speech  is  made  up  of  difficulties  —  is  the  vastness  and 
variety  of  our  respective  nations.  Many  a  time  it  must 
happen  that  an  Englishman  and  an  Indian,  talking  as 
friends  over  their  national  differences,  feel  that  if  the 
matter  lay  with  them,  if  they  too  were  their  respective 
nations,  it  would  not  be  hard  to  come  to  an  understand- 
ing. But  behind  each  is  a  trail  of  innumerable  human 
beings,  utterly  unlike  the  two  supposed  principals.  I 
can  think  of  many  pairs  of  sensible  people  who  would  do 
for  my  purpose ;  several  statesmen,  a  great  many  writers 
and  historians.  But  imagine,  for  example,  Lord  Haldane 
and  the  late  Mr.  Gokhale.  Clearly  they  would  under- 
stand each  other :  they  might  or  might  not  agree  on  some 
special  point,  but  the  basis  of  common  action  and  agree- 
ment and  mutual  respect  would  be  there.  But  as  you 
look  at  England,  doubtless  you  see  behind  Lord  Haldane 
masses  of  people  less  understanding  and  less  sympa- 
thetic, cheerful,  ignorant  subalterns,  common  soldiers 
who  talk  contemptuously  about  " black  men";  deter- 
mined old  gentlemen,  most  falsely  called  " imperialists," 
who  cry  out  that  India  was  taken  by  the  sword  and  must 
be  held  by  the  sword.  You  see  in  your  indignant  im- 
agination the  squalid  crowds  that  reel  out  of  our  public 
houses  and  music-halls  and  race-courses,  and  ask  with 
secret  rage  if  these  are  your  born  masters;  if  these  are 
the  people  who  claim  by  blood  and  birth  and  colour  to 
be  your  inherent  superiors!  Is  that  overstated?  No;  I 
think  not;  though  we  must  always  remember  in  a  well- 
ordered  modern  State  how  little  the  baser  elements  of  a 


74  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

population  direct  its  policy.  But  there  they  are.  And  on 
the  other  side,  behind  Mr.  Gokhale  —  you  can  imagine 
better  than  I  can  describe  the  extraordinary  combina- 
tion of  peoples,  of  different  habits  and  ethics,  different 
religions  and  superstitions,  different  levels  of  culture 
from  almost  the  highest  to  the  lowest.  "One  nation 
governing  another":  put  at  its  crudest,  such  a  principle 
implies  putting  the  whole  of  one  of  these  vast,  incoher- 
ent, heterogeneous  masses  on  top  of  the  other  to  govern 
it.  Any  such  process  would  be  clearly  wrong.  It  is  a 
principle  which  even  the  stoutest,  old-fashioned  imperi- 
alist has  abandoned.  The  only  possible  plan  is,  by  one 
method  or  another,  to  select  out  of  both  masses  those 
capable  of  governing  best,  and  of  best  understanding 
and  learning  from  one  another. 

For  the  rest,  we  in  our  home  politics  have  a  large  task 
before  us  in  levelling  up  the  conditions  of  our  poorer 
classes  to  something  worthier  of  our  place  in  the  world, 
in  material  conditions,  in  education,  in  outlook  on  the 
whole  of  life.  Our  task  will  be  heavy;  but  a  task  of  the 
same  character  lies  before  you,  and  yours  will  be  colossal. 
You  have  a  far  larger  field  to  plough;  you  have  to  cut 
your  way  through  a  far  deeper  and  wilder  jungle.  To 
raise  the  level  of  life  in  Great  Britain  —  in  India:  the 
more  they  are  both  raised  to  the  level  of  their  best  peo- 
ple, the  more  they  will  be  ready  to  understand  and  help 
one  another,  the  more  all  the  unnecessary  difficulties 
between  the  two  parties  will  tend  to  disappear. 

"Bande  Mataram":  "Hail,  Mother!"  I  attended 
lately  an  Indian  dinner  where  that  Nationalist  motto 
met  one's  eye  at  every  turn.  You  will  work  in  devotion 
to  your  Mother.  It  is  well  that  you  should.  And  no  one 
who  knows  you  can  doubt  that  you  have  among  you  the 


INDIA  AND  THE  WAR  75 

spirit  of  martyrs.  That  is  a  fine  thing;  in  some  emergen- 
cies of  life  an  indispensable  thing.  But  there  is  something 
far  finer,  and  that  is  the  spirit  of  a  statesman.  A  martyr 
sacrifices  himself  rather  than  be  false  to  some  principle. 
A  statesman,  without  thinking  of  himself  one  way  or 
another,  when  he  finds  some  evil  or  dangerous  state  of 
affairs  sees  how  to  make  it  safe  or  good.  Let  us  serve  our 
Mothers,  you  yours  and  we  ours,  so  far  as  we  can  in  the 
spirit  of  statesmen. 

But  is  there  not  —  I  put  this  question  quite  practically 
—  a  Greater  Mother  whose  children  we  all  are,  whose 
day  is  coming,  but  not  yet  come?  Cannot  you  and  we 
work  together  in  the  service  of  this  Greater  Common- 
wealth, which  is  also  the  service  of  humanity?  We  must 
be  together.  I  can  see  no  future  for  an  isolated  India; 
no  happy  future  for  a  Great  Britain  which  is  content  to 
boast  that  she  holds  India  merely  by  the  sword.  Work- 
ing together,  we  have  formidable  obstacles  to  face,  but 
we  have  wonderful  and  unique  gifts  to  contribute. 
Nations  are  apt  to  see  vividly  enough  one  another's 
faults,  but  they  would  do  better  to  remember,  as  J.  S. 
Mill  puts  it,  their  "  reciprocal  superiorities."  I  will  not 
try  now  to  define  them.  My  own  respect  for  England  — ■ 
if  for  the  moment  I  may  speak  as  one  who  has  but  little 
pure  English  blood  in  his  veins,  being  an  Australian 
Irishman  of  Scotch  descent  —  has  grown  steadily  with 
experience.  But  I  will  not  dwell  on  special  virtues  of 
England,  nor  yet  on  those  of  India;  on  your  wonderful 
intellectual  aptitude  and  readiness  for  fine  thought;  on 
your  great  past  which  is  still  living;  on  your  people's 
characteristic  aloofness  from  the  vulgarity  of  modern 
Western  life;  on  the  qualities  shown  in  your  Moslem 
architecture,  your  Hindu  religious  thought.   But  here 


76  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

I  would  venture,  if  I  may,  to  suggest  a  caution.  Some 
writers,  I  know,  hold  up  for  your  admiration  and  exam- 
ple that  famous  episode  in  the  Bhagavad  Gita  in  which 
even  the  noise  of  battle  has  to  wait  unregarded  while 
the  stream  of  philosophic  thinking  runs  its  course.  That 
spirit  is  a  fine  element  in  life;  but,  if  I  may  for  once  give 
advice,  I  will  say:  Beware  of  letting  it  be  more  than  an 
clement.  To  an  Indian  who  wishes  to  make  India  great 
I  would  say,  Beware  of  losing  yourself  in  reverie  while 
others  are  fighting  the  battles  of  life.  Beware  altogether 
of  dreams  and  dreamlike  passions.  Face  facts;  get 
knowledge;  cultivate  common  sense;  learn  to  trust  and 
be  trusted;  serve  your  community.  Do  not  lose  your- 
selves in  admiration  of  your  own  past  or  your  own  racial 
peculiarities;  think  of  your  future,  and  be  not  afraid  to 
uproot  from  your  culture  every  element  which  prevents 
India  taking  her  place  among  free  and  progressive  nations. 
You  need  never  be  afraid  that  your  own  special  quali- 
ties will  not  remain  and  exercise  their  valuable  influence 
on  the  world.  You  will  teach  us  and  we  you.  And  other 
nations  will  be  near,  bringing  their  help  and  their  lessons : 
America  not  far  off  with  her  generous  swiftness  of  move- 
ment and  her  loving-kindness  towards  all  in  suffering; 
not  very  far,  perhaps,  even  our  present  enemies  with 
their  great  powers  of  discipline,  of  self-devotion,  and  of 
remorseless  effectiveness.  Let  us  preserve  our  national 
characters.  Let  us  use  our  feelings  of  patriotism  and 
nationalism  to  inspire  us  and  to  give  strength  to  our 
hands;  but  at  the  back  of  our  minds  let  us  always  re- 
member our  wider  Commonwealth,  our  Greater  Mo- 
ther, and  think  of  the  time  when  we  brother  nations 
may  bring  our  various  gifts  to  her  feet  and  say  together 
our  "Bande  Mataram." 


THE  EVIL  AND  THE  GOOD  OF  THE  WAR1 
(October,  1915) 

I  should  like  before  I  begin  to  express  to  you  the  very 
real  gratitude  I  feel  to  a  body  like  this  in  asking  me  to 
give  this  address,  and  in  treating  one  whose  religious 
views,  freely  expressed  in  books  and  lectures,  are  prob- 
ably to  the  left  of  almost  all  those  here  present,  not  as 
an  outsider,  but  recognizing  that  people  in  my  position 
are  also  capable  of  a  religious  spirit,  and  of  seeking  after 
truth  in  the  same  way  as  yourselves.  I  believe  that  you 
and  I  are  in  real  and  fundamental  sympathy  both  over 
religious  questions  proper,  and  over  a  question  like  this 
of  the  war,  which  tests  one's  ultimate  beliefs  and  the  real 
working  religion  by  which  one  lives.  I  think  that  we 
may  say  that  probably  all  here  do  begin,  in  their  own 
minds,  by  feeling  the  war  as  an  ethical  problem.  Cer- 
tainly that  is  the  way  it  appealed  to  me,  and  it  is  from 
that  point  of  view  that  I  wish  to  speak  to-night. 

Curiously  enough,  I  remember  speaking  in  this  hall, 
I  suppose  about  fifteen  years  ago,  against  the  policy  of 
the  war  in  South  Africa.  I  little  imagined  then  that  I 
should  live  to  speak  in  favour  of  the  policy  of  a  much 
greater  and  more  disastrous  war,  but  that  is  what,  on 
the  whole,  I  shall  do.  But  I  want  to  begin  by  facing 
certain  facts.  Do  not  let  us  attempt  to  blind  ourselves 
or  be  blinded  by  phrases  into  thinking  that  the  war  is 

1  Address  to  the  Congress  of  Free  Churches,  October  27,  1915. 


78  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

anything  but  a  disaster,  and  an  appalling  disaster.  Do 
not  let  us  be  led  away  by  views  which  have  some  gleam 
of  truth  in  them  into  believing  that  this  war  will  put 
an  end  to  war  —  that  it  will  convert  Germany,  and  cer- 
tainly convert  Russia  to  liberal  opinions,  that  it  will 
establish  natural  frontiers  throughout  Europe  or  that  it 
will  work  a  moral  regeneration  in  nations  which  were 
somehow  sapped  by  too  many  years  of  easy  living  in 
peace.  There  is  some  truth,  and  very  valuable  truth,  in 
all  those  considerations,  but  they  do  not  alter  the  fact 
that  the  war  is,  as  I  said,  an  appalling  disaster.  We  knew 
when  we  entered  upon  it  that  it  was  a  disaster  —  we 
knew  that  we  should  suffer,  and  that  all  Europe  wrould 
suffer. 

Now,  let  us  run  over  very  briefly  the  ways  in  which  it 
is  doing  evil.  Let  us  face  the  evil  first.  There  is,  first, 
the  mere  suffering,  the  leagues  and  leagues  of  human 
suffering  that  is  now  spreading  across  Europe,  the  suffer- 
ing of  the  soldiers,  the  actual  wounded  combatants,  and 
behind  them  the  suffering  of  non-combatants,  the  suffer- 
ing of  people  dispossessed,  of  refugees,  of  people  turned 
suddenly  homeless  into  a  world  without  pity.  Behind 
that  you  have  the  sufferings  of  dumb  animals.  We  are 
not  likely  to  forget  them.  There  is  another  side  which  we 
are  even  less  likely  to  forget,  and  that  is  our  own  personal 
losses.  There  are  very  few  people  in  this  room  who  have 
not  suffered  in  that  direct,  personal  way;  there  will  be 
still  fewer  by  the  end  of  the  war.  I  do  not  want  to  dwell 
upon  that  question ;  the  tears  are  very  close  behind  our 
eyes  when  we  begin  to  think  of  that  aspect  of  things,  and 
it  is  not  for  me  to  bring  them  forward.  Think,  again,  of 
the  State's  loss,  the  loss  of  all  those  chosen  men;  not 
mere  men  taken  haphazard,  but  young,  strong  men, 


THE  EVIL  AND  THE  GOOD  OF  THE  WAR  79 

largely  men  of  the  most  generous  and  self-sacrificing 
impulses,  who  responded  most  swiftly  to  the  call  for 
their  loyalty  and  their  lives.  Some  of  them  are  dead, 
some  will  come  back  injured,  maimed,  invalided,  in 
various  ways  broken.  There  is  an  old  Greek  proverb 
which  exactly  expresses  the  experience  that  we  shall  be 
forced  to  go  through,  "The  spring  is  taken  out  of  your 
year."  For  a  good  time  ahead  the  years  of  England  and 
of  most  of  Europe  will  be  without  a  spring.  In  that  con- 
sideration I  think  it  is  only  fair,  and  I  am  certain  that 
an  audience  like  this  will  agree  with  me,  to  add  all  the 
nations  together.  It  is  not  only  we  and  our  allies  who  are 
suffering  the  loss  there;  it  is  a  loss  to  humanity.  Accord- 
ing to  the  Russian  proverb,  "They  are  all  sons  of 
mothers" — the  wildest  Senegalese,  the  most  angry 
Prussian.  And  that  is  the  state  that  we  are  in.  We  re- 
joice —  of  course  we  rejoice  —  to  hear  of  great  German 
losses.  We  face  the  fact:  we  do  rejoice;  yet  it  is  terrible 
that  we  should  have  to;  for  the  loss  of  these  young  Ger- 
mans is  also  a  great  and  a  terrible  loss  to  humanity.  It 
seems  almost  trivial  after  these  considerations  of  life  and 
death,  to  think  too  much  of  our  monetary  losses;  of  the 
fact  that  we  have  spent  1595  millions  and  that  we  are 
throwing  away  money  at  the  rate  of  nearly  five  millions 
a  day.  Yet  just  think  what  it  means;  that  precious  sur- 
plus with  which  we  meant  to  make  England  finer  in 
every  way  —  that  surplus  is  gone. 

From  a  rich,  generous,  sanguine  nation  putting  her 
hopes  in  the  future,  we  shall  emerge  a  rather  poverty- 
stricken  nation,  bound  to  consider  every  penny  of  in- 
creased expenditure;  a  harassed  nation,  only  fortunate 
if  we  are  still  free.  Just  think  of  all  our  schemes  of  re- 
form and  how  they  are  blown  to  the  four  winds  — 


80  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

schemes  of  social  improvement,  of  industrial  improve- 
ment; a  scheme  like  Lord  Haldane's  great  education 
scheme  which  was  to  begin  by  caring  for  the  health  of 
the  small  child,  and  then  lead  him  up  by  a  great  highway 
from  the  primary  school  to  the  university !  How  some 
of  us  who  were  specially  interested  in  education  revelled 
in  the  thought  of  that  great  idea;  but  it  was  going  to  cost 
such  a  lot  of  money.  It  would  cost  nearly  as  much  as 
half  a  week  of  the  war!  Think  what  riches  we  had  then, 
and  on  the  whole,  although  we  are  perhaps  the  most 
generous  nation  in  Europe,  what  little  use  we  made  of 
them. 

We  speak  of  spiritual  regeneration  as  one  of  the  results 
of  war,  but  here  too  there  is  the  spiritual  evil  to  be  faced. 
I  do  not  speak  merely  of  the  danger  of  reaction.  There 
will  be  a  grave  danger  of  political  reaction  and  of  religious 
reaction,  and  you  will  all  have  your  work  cut  out  for  you 
in  that  matter.  The  political  reaction,  I  believe,  will  not 
take  the  form  of  a  mere  wave  of  extreme  conservatism; 
the  real  danger  will  be  a  reaction  against  anything  that 
can  be  called  mellow  and  wise  in  politics;  the  real  danger 
will  be  a  struggle  between  crude,  militarist  reaction  and 
violent,  unthinking  democracy.  As  for  religion,  you  are 
probably  all  anxious  as  to  what  is  going  to  happen  there. 
Every  narrow  form  of  religion  is  lifting  up  its  horns 
again;  rank  superstition  is  beginning  to  flourish.  I  am 
told  that  fortune-tellers  and  crystal-gazers  are  really 
having  now  the  time  of  their  lives.  It  will  be  for  bodies 
like  yourselves  to  be  careful  about  all  that.  But  besides 
that  there  is  another  more  direct  spiritual  danger.  We 
cannot  go  on  living  an  abnormal  life  without  becoming 
fundamentally  disorganized.  We  have  seen  that,  es- 
pecially in  Germany;  with  them  it  seems  to  be  a  tend- 


THE  EVIL  AND  THE  GOOD  OF  THE  WAR  81 

ency  much  stronger  and  much  worse  than  it  is  with  us; 
but  clearly  you  cannot  permanently  concentrate  your 
mind  on  injuring  your  fellow  creatures  without  habituat- 
ing yourself  to  evil  thoughts.  In  Germany,  of  course, 
there  is  a  deliberate  cult  of  hatred.  There  is  a  process, 
which  I  will  not  stop  to  analyze,  a  process  utterly  amaz- 
ing, by  which  a  highly  civilized  and  ordinarily  humane 
nation  has  gone  on  from  what  I  can  only  call  atrocity  to 
atrocity.  How  these  people  have  ever  induced  them- 
selves to  commit  the  crimes  in  Belgium  which  are 
attested  by  Lord  Bryce's  Commission,  or  even  to  or- 
ganize the  flood  of  calculated  mendacity  that  they  pour 
out  day  by  day,  and  last  of  all  to  stand  by  passive  and 
apparently  approving,  while  deeds  like  the  new  Arme- 
nian massacres  are  going  on  under  their  aegis  and  in  the 
very  presence  of  their  consuls,  —  all  this  passes  one's 
imagination.  Now,  we  do  not  act  like  that;  there  is 
something  or  other  in  the  English  nature  which  will  not 
allow  it.  We  shall  show  anger  and  passion,  but  we  are 
probably  not  capable  of  that  kind  of  organized  cruelty, 
and  I  hope  we  never  shall  be.  Yet  the  same  forces  are 
at  work. 

I  do  not  want  to  dwell  upon  this  subject  too  long,  but 
when  people  talk  of  national  regeneration  or  the  reverse, 
there  is  one  very  obvious  and  plain  test  which  one  looks 
at  first,  and  that  is  the  drink  bill.  We  have  made  a  great 
effort  to  restrain  our  drinking;  large  numbers  of  people 
have  given  up  consuming  wine  and  spirits  altogether, 
following  the  King's  example.  We  have  made  a  great 
effort  and  what  is  the  result?  The  drink  bill  is  up  seven 
millions  as  compared  with  the  last  year  of  peace !  That 
seven  millions  is  partly  due  to  the  increased  price;  but 
at  the  old  prices  it  would  still  be  up  rather  over  two 


82  FAITH,  AND  WAR,  POLICY 

millions.  And  ahead,  at  the  end  of  all  this,  what  pros- 
pect is  there?  There  is  sure  to  be  poverty  and  unem- 
ployment, great  and  long  continued,  just  as  there  was 
after  1815.  I  trust  we  shall  be  better  able  to  face  it;  we 
shall  have  thought  out  the  difficulties  more;  we  who  are 
left  with  any  reasonable  margin  of  subsistence  will,  I 
hope,  be  more  generous  and  more  clear-sighted  than  our 
ancestors  a  century  earlier.  But  in  any  case  there  is 
coming  a  time  of  great  social  distress  and  very  little 
money  indeed  to  meet  it  with.  We  shall  achieve,  no 
doubt,  peace  in  Europe,  we  shall  have  probably  some 
better  arrangement  of  frontiers,  but  underneath  the 
peace  there  will  be  terrific  hatred.  And  in  the  heart  of 
Europe,  instead  of  a  treacherous  and  grasping  neigh- 
bour, we  shall  be  left  with  a  deadly  enemy,  living  for 
revenge. 

Now,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  I  do  not  think  that  I  have 
shirked  the  indictment  of  this  war.  It  is  a  terrible  indict- 
ment; and  you  will  ask  me,  perhaps,  after  that  descrip- 
tion, if  I  still  believe  that  our  policy  in  declaring  war  was 
right.  Yes,  I  do.  Have  I  any  doubt  in  any  corner  of  my 
mind  that  the  war  was  right?  I  have  none.  We  took  the 
path  of  duty  and  the  only  path  we  could  take.  Some 
people  speak  now  as  if  going  on  with  the  war  was  a  kind 
of  indulgence  of  our  evil  passions.  The  war  is  not  an 
indulgence  of  our  evil  passions;  the  war  is  a  martyrdom. 

Now,  let  us  not  exaggerate  here.  It  is  not  a  martyrdom 
for  Christianity.  I  saw  a  phrase  the  other  day  that  we 
were  fighting  for  the  nailed  hand  of  One  Crucified  against 
the  " mailed  fist."  That  description  is  an  ideal  a  man 
may  carry  in  his  own  heart,  but,  of  course,  it  is  an  ex- 
aggeration to  apply  to  our  national  position,  to  the  po- 
sition of  any  nation  in  international  politics.   We  are  not 


THE  EVIL  AND  THE  GOOD  OF  THE  WAR  83 

saints,  we  are  not  a  nation  of  early  Christians.  Yet  we 
are  fighting  for  a  great  cause.  .  .  .  How  shall  I  express  it? 
\Ve  are  a  country  of  ripe  political  experience,  of  ancient 
freedom;  we  are,  with  all  our  faults,  I  think,  a  country  of 
kindly  record  and  generous  ideals,  and  we  stand  for  the 
established  tradition  of  good  behaviour  between  nations. 
We  stand  for  the  observance  of  treaties  and  the  recogni- 
tion of  mutual  rights,  for  the  tradition  of  common  hon- 
esty and  common  kindliness  between  nation  and  -na- 
tion ;  we  stand  for  the  old  decencies,  the  old  humanities, 
"the  old  ordinance,"  as  the  King's  letter  put  it,  "the 
old  ordinance  that  has  bound  civilized  Europe  together." 
And  against  us  there  is  a  power  which,  as  the  King  says, 
has  changed  that  ordinance.  Europe  is  no  longer  held 
together  by  the  old  decencies  as  it  was.  The  enemy  has 
substituted  for  it  some  rule  which  we  cannot  yet  fathom 
to  its  full  depth.  You  can  call  it  militarism  or  Real- 
politik  if  you  like;  it  seems  to  involve  the  domination  of 
force  and  fraud,  it  seems  to  involve  organized  ruthless- 
ness,  organized  terrorism,  organized  mendacity.  The 
phrase  that  comes  back  to  my  mind  when  I  think  of 
it  is  Mr.  Gladstone's  description  of  another  evil  rule 

—  it  is  the  negation  of  God  erected  into  a  system  of  gov- 
ernment. The  sort  of  thing  for  which  we  are  fighting,  the 
old  ordinance,  the  old  kindliness,  and  the  old  humanities 

—  is  it  too  much  to  say  that,  if  there  is  God  in  man,  it 
is  in  these  things,  after  all,  that  God  in  man  speaks? 

The  old  ordinance  is  illogical.  Of  course  it  is  illogical. 
It  means  that  civilized  human  beings  in  the  midst  of 
their  greatest  passions,  in  the  midst  of  their  angers  and 
rages,  feel  that  there  is  something  deeper,  something 
more  important  than  war  or  victory  —  that  at  the  bot- 
tom of  all  strife  there  are  some  remnants  of  human 


84  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

brotherhood.  Now,  I  do  not  want  to  go  into  a  long  list 
of  German  atrocities;  much  less  do  I  want  to  denounce 
the  enemy.  As  Mr.  Balfour  put  it  in  his  whimsical 
way,  "We  take  our  enemy  as  we  find  him."  But  there 
has  been  a  special  method  throughout  this  war  —  the 
method  the  enemy  has  followed,  to  go  at  each  step  out- 
side the  old  conventions.  We  have  sometimes  followed. 
Sometimes  we  have  had  to  follow.  But  the  whole  history 
of  the  war  is  a  history  of  that  process.  The  peoples  fought 
according  to  certain  rules,  but  one  people  got  outside  the 
rules  right  from  the  beginning.  The  broken  treaty,  the 
calculated  ferocity  in  Belgium  and  northern  France,  the 
killing  of  women  and  non-combatants  by  sea  and  land 
and  air,  the  shelling  of  hospitals,  the  ill-treatment  of 
wounded  prisoners;  all  the  doctoring  of  weapons  with  a 
view  to  cruelty;  the  explosive  bullets;  the  projectiles 
tinctured  with  substances  which  would  produce  a  gan- 
grenous wound;  the  poisoned  gases;  the  infected  wells. 
It  is  the  same  method  throughout.  The  old  conventions 
of  humanity,  the  old  arrangements  which  admitted  that, 
beneath  our  cruelties,  beneath  our  hatreds,  there  was 
some  common  humanity  and  friendliness  between  all  na- 
tions, these  have  been  systematically  broken  one  after 
another.  Now,  observe;  these  things  were  done  not  reck- 
lessly but  to  gain  a  specific  advantage ;  they  were  done, 
as  Mr.  Secretary  Zimmermann  put  it  in  the  case  of  Miss 
Cavell,  "to  inspire  fear."  And  observe  that  in  many 
places  they  have  been  successful.  They  have  inspired 
fear.  Only  look  at  what  has  recently  happened  and  what 
is  happening  now  in  the  Balkans.  Every  one  of  these 
Balkan  States  has  looked  at  Belgium.  The  German 
agents  have  told  them  to  look  at  Belgium.  They  have 
looked  at  Belgium  and  their  courage  has  failed.  Is  that 


THE  EVIL  AND  THE  GOOD  OF  THE  WAR  85 

the  way  in  which  we  wish  the  government  of  the  world 
to  be  conducted  in  future?  It  is  the  way  it  will  be  con- 
ducted unless  we  and  our  allies  stand  firm  to  the  end. 

All  these  points,  terrible  as  they  are,  seem  to  me  to  be 
merely  consequences  from  what  happened  at  the  very 
beginning  of  the  war.  There  are  probably  some  people 
here  who  differ  from  what  I  am  saying  and  I  am  grateful 
to  them  for  the  patient  way  in  which  they  are  listening  to 
me.  To  all  these  I  would  earnestly  say,  "Do  not  despise 
the  diplomatic  documents."  Remember  carefully  that 
the  diplomacy  of  July  and  August,  1914,  is  a  central  fact. 
Remember  that  it  is  the  one  part  of  the  history  ante- 
cedent to  this  war  which  is  absolutely  clear  as  daylight. 
Read  the  documents  and  read  the  serious  studies  of  them. 
I  would  recommend  specially  the  book  by  Mr.  William 
Archer,  called  "Thirteen  Days."  There  is  also  Mr. 
Headlam's  admirable  book,  "The  History  of  Twelve 
Days,"  and  the  equally  admirable  book  by  the  Ameri- 
can jurist,  Mr.  Stowell.1  There  the  issue  is  clear  and  the 
question  is  settled.  The  verdict  of  history  is  already 
given  in  these  negotiations.  There  was  a  dispute,  a  some- 
what artificial  dispute  which  could  easily  have  been 
settled  by  a  little  reasonableness  on  the  part  of  the  two 
principals.  If  that  failed,  there  was  the  mediation  of 
friends,  there  was  a  conference  of  the  disinterested  na- 
tions —  there  was  appeal  to  the  Concert  of  Europe. 
There  was  the  arbitration  of  The  Hague  —  an  arbitra- 
tion to  which  Serbia  appealed  on  the  very  first  day  and 
to  which  the  Czar  appealed  again  on  the  very  last.  All 
Europe  wanted  peace  and  fair  settlement.  The  Govern- 
ments of  the  two  Central  Powers  refused  it.  Every  sort 

1  [Ellery  C.  Stoweil,  The  Diplomacy  of  the  War  of  1914:  The  Begin- 
ninrjs  of  the  War  (Boston,  1915).] 


8G  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

of  settlement  was  overridden.  You  will  all  remember 
that  when  every  settlement  that  we  could  propose  had 
been  shoved  aside  one  after  another,  Sir  Edward  Grey 
made  an  appeal  to  Germany  to  make  any  proposal  her- 
self—  any  reasonable  proposal  —  and  we  bound  our- 
selves to  accept  it,  to  accept  it  even  at  the  cost  of  de- 
serting our  associates.  No  such  proposal  was  made.  All 
Europe  wanted  peace  and  fair  dealing  except  one  Power, 
or  one  pair  of  Powers  if  you  so  call  it,  who  were  confident, 
not  in  the  justice  of  their  cause,  but  in  the  overpowering 
strength  of  their  war  machine.  As  the  semi-official  news- 
papers said,  ''Germany  does  not  enter  conferences  in 
which  she  is  likely  to  be  in  a  minority."  By  fair  dealing 
they  might  have  got  their  rights  or  a  little  more  than 
their  rights.  By  war  they  expected  to  get  something  like 
the  supremacy  of  Europe.  In  peace,  with  their  neigh- 
bours reasonable,  in  no  pressing  danger,  Germany  de- 
liberately preferred  war  to  fair  settlement;  and  thereby 
in  my  judgement  Germany  committed  the  primal  and 
fundamental  sin  against  the  brotherhood  of  mankind. 

Of  course  all  great  historical  events  have  complicated 
causes,  but  on  that  fact  almost  alone  I  should  base  the 
justice  and  the  necessity  of  our  cause  in  this  war.  Other 
objects  have  been  suggested:  that  we  are  righting  lest 
Europe  should  be  subject  to  the  hegemony  of  Germany. 
If  Germany  naturally  by  legitimate  means  grows  to  be 
the  most  influential  Power  there  is  no  reason  for  any  one 
to  fight  her.  It  is  said  we  are  fighting  for  democracy 
against  autocratic  government.  I  prefer  democracy  my- 
self, but  one  form  of  government  has  no  right  to  declare 
war  because  it  dislikes  another  form.  It  is  suggested  that 
we  are  fighting  to  prevent  the  break-up  of  the  Empire.  In 
that  case,  from  motives  of  loyalty,  of  course  we  should 


THE  EVIL  AND  THE  GOOD  OF  THE  WAR  87 

have  to  fight,  and  I  think  the  break-up  of  the  Empire 
wculd  be  a  great  disaster  to  the  world.  But  not  for  any 
causes  of  that  description  would  I  use  the  phrase  I  have 
used,  or  say  that  in  this  war  we  were  undergoing  a 
martyrdom.  I  do  use  it  deliberately  now:  for  I  believe 
no  greater  evil  could  occur  than  that  mankind  should 
submit,  or  should  agree  to  submit,  to  the  rule  of  naked 
force. 

Now,  I  would  ask  again  those  who  are  following  me, 
as  I  say,  with  patience,  but  I  have  no  doubt  with  diffi- 
culty, to  remember  that  this  situation  —  in  spite  of 
particular  details  —  is  on  the  whole  an  old  story.  The 
Greeks  knew  all  about  it  when  they  used  the  word 
" Hubris"  —  that  pride  engendered  by  too  much  suc- 
cess which  leads  to  every  crime.  Many  nations  after  a 
career  of  extraordinary  success  have  become  mad  or 
drunk  with  ambition,  "By  that  sin  fell  the  angels." 
They  were  not  wicked  to  start  with,  but  afterwards  they 
became  devils.  We  should  never  have  said  a  word  against 
the  Germans  before  this  madness  entered  into  them. 
We  liked  them.  Most  of  Europe  rather  liked  and  ad- 
mired them.  But,  as  I  said,  it  is  an  old  story.  There  have 
been  tyrants.  Tyrants  are  common  things  in  history. 
Bloody  aggression  is  a  common  thing  in  history  in  its 
darker  periods.  But  nearly  always,  where  there  have 
been  tyrants  and  aggressors,  there  have  been  men  and 
peoples  ready  to  stand  up  and  suffer  and  to  die  rather 
than  submit  to  the  tyrant,  and  the  voice  of  history 
speaks  pretty  clearly  about  these  issues  and  it  says  that 
the  men  who  resisted  were  right.  So  that,  ladies  and 
gentlemen,  as  with  our  eyes  open  we  entered  into  this 
struggle,  I  say  with  our  eyes  open  we  must  go  on  with  it. 
We  must  go  on  with  it  a  united  nation,  trusting  our 


88  FAITH,  WAR,  AND   POLICY 

leaders,  obeying  our  rulers,  minding  each  man  his  own 
business,  refusing  for  an  instant  to  lend  an  ear  to  the 
agitated  whispers  of  faction  or  of  hysteria.  It  may  be 
that  we  shall  have  to  traverse  the  valley  of  death,  but 
we  shall  traverse  it  until  the  cause  of  humanity  is  won. 

And  now,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  that  being  the  cause, 
we  are  girt  up  in  this  war  to  the  performance  of  a  great 
duty;  and  there  are  many  things  in  it  which,  evil  as  they 
are,  can  in  some  way  be  turned  to  good.  It  lies  with  us 
to  do  our  best  so  to  turn  them. 

If  we  take  the  old  analogy  from  biology,  we  are  a 
community,  a  pack,  a  herd,  a  flock.  We  have  realized 
our  unity.  We  are  one.  I  think  most  of  us  feel  that  our 
lives  are  not  our  own ;  they  belong  to  England.  France 
has  gone  through  the  same  process  to  an  even  greater 
degree.  Mr.  Kipling,  who  used  certainly  to  be  no  special 
lover  of  France,  has  told  us  that  there  "the  men  are 
wrought  to  an  edge  of  steel,  and  the  women  are  a  line  of 
fire  behind  them."  Our  divisions  before  the  war  it  is  a 
disgrace  to  think  of.  They  were  so  great  that  the  enemy 
calculated  upon  them,  and  judged  that  we  should  not 
be  able  to  fight.  These  divisions  have  not  been  killed  as 
we  hoped ;  the  remnants  of  them  are  still  living.  I  cannot 
bear  to  speak  of  them.  Let  us  think  as  little  as  possible 
about  them,  and  lend  no  ear,  no  patience  to  the  people 
who  try  to  make  them  persist.  As  for  the  division  of 
class  and  class,  I  think  there,  at  least,  we  have  made  a 
great  gain.  I  would  ask  you  to  put  to  yourselves  this 
test.  Remember  how  before  the  war  the  ordinary  work- 
man spoke  of  his  employer  and  the  employer  of  his  work- 
men, and  think  now  how  the  average  soldier  speaks  of 
his  officer  and  how  the  officer  speaks  of  his  men.   The 


THE  EVIL  AND  THE  GOOD  OF  THE  WAR  89 

change  is  almost  immeasurable.  Inside  the  country  we 
have  gained  that  unity;  outside  in  our  relations  with 
foreign  countries  we  have  also  made  a  great  gain.  Re- 
member we  have  allies  now,  more  allies  and  far  closer 
allies  than  we  have  ever  had.  We  have  learned  to  respect 
and  to  understand  other  nations.  You  cannot  read  those 
diplomatic  documents  of  which  I  spoke  without  feeling 
respect  for  both  the  French  and  Russian  diplomatists  for 
their  steadiness,  their  extreme  reasonableness,  their  en- 
tire loyalty,  and  as  you  study  them  you  are  amused  to 
see  the  little  differences  of  national  character  all  work- 
ing to  one  end.  Since  the  war  has  come  on  we  have 
learned  to  admire  other  nations.  There  is  no  man  in 
England  who  will  ever  again  in  his  heart  dare  to  speak 
slightingly  or  with  contempt  of  Belgium  or  Serbia.  It  is 
something  that  we  have  had  our  hearts  opened,  that  we, 
who  were  rather  an  insular  people,  have  learned  to  wel- 
come other  nations  as  friends  and  comrades. 

Nay,  more,  we  made  these  alliances  originally  on  a 
special  principle  about  which  I  would  like  to  say  a  sen- 
tence or  two.  That  is  the  principle  of  the  Entente,  or 
Cordial  Understanding,  which  is  specially  connected 
with  the  name  of  our  present  Foreign  Secretary,  and,  to 
a  slighter  extent,  with  that  of  his  predecessor.  The 
principle  of  the  Entente  has  been  explained  by  Sir 
Edward  Grey  several  times,  but  I  take  two  phrases  of 
his  own  particularly.  It  began  because  he  found  that 
"all  experience  had  shown  that  any  two  great  empires 
who  were  touching  each  other,  whose  interests  rubbed 
one  against  another  frequently  in  different  parts  of  the 
world,  had  no  middle  course  open  to  them  between  con- 
tinual liability  to  friction  and  cordial  friendship."  He 
succeeded  in  establishing  that  relation  of  perfect  frank- 


90  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

ness  and  mutual  friendship  with  the  two  groat  empires 
with  whom  our  interests  were  always  rubbing.  Instead 
of  friction,  instead  of  suspicion  and  intrigue,  we  estab- 
lished with  our  two  old  rivals  a  permanent  habit  of  fair 
dealing,  frankness,  and  good-will.  The  second  great 
principle  of  the  Entente  was  this,  that  there  is  nothing  ex- 
elusive  in  these  friendships.  We  began  it  with  France, 
we  continued  it  with  Russia,  we  achieved  it  in  reality, 
although  not  in  actual  diplomatic  name,  with  the 
United  States,  and  practically  also  with  Italy,  and  any 
one  who  has  read  the  diplomatic  history  will  see  the 
effort  upon  effort  we  made  to  establish  it  with  our  pres- 
ent enemies.  I  think  we  have  here  some  real  basis  for  a 
sort  of  alliance  of  Europe  —  that  sort  of  better  concert 
for  which  we  all  hope.  One  cannot  guess  details.  It  is 
very  likely,  indeed,  that  at  the  beginning  Germany  will 
stay  outside  and  will  refuse  to  come  into  our  kind  of 
concert.  If  so  we  must  "take  our  enemies  as  we  find 
them."  The  fact  of  there  being  an  enemy  outside  will 
very  likely  make  us  inside  hold  together  all  the  better 
for  the  first  few  years.  When  we  are  once  thoroughly  in 
harness,  and  most  nations  have  the  practice  of  habitually 
trusting  one  another  and  never  intriguing  against  one 
another,  then,  no  doubt,  the  others  will  come  in. 

Now,  I  spoke  at  the  beginning  about  the  possible 
dangers  of  reaction,  but  there  is  a  very  good  side  also  in 
the  reaction.  Part  of  it  is  right.  It  is  in  part  a  reaction 
against  superficial  things,  superficial  ways  of  feeling,  and 
perhaps  also  superficial  ways  of  thought.  WTe  have  gone 
back  in  our  daily  experience  to  deeper  and  more  primi- 
tive things.  There  has  been  a  deepening  of  the  quality 
of  our  ordinary  life.   We  are  called  upon  to  take  up  a 


THE  EVIL  AND  THE  GOOD  OF  THE  WAR  91 

greater  duty  than  ever  before.  We  have  to  face  more 
peril,  we  have  to  endure  greater  suffering;  death  itself 
has  come  close  to  us.  It  is  intimate  in  the  thoughts  of 
every  one  of  us,  and  it  has  taught  us  in  some  way  to  love 
one  another.  For  the  first  time  for  many  centuries  this 
"unhappy  but  not  inglorious  generation,"  as  it  has  been 
called,  is  living  and  moving  daily,  waking  and  sleeping, 
in  the  habitual  presence  of  ultimate  and  tremendous 
things.  We  are  living  now  in  a  great  age. 

A  thing  which  has  struck  me,  and  I  have  spoken  of  it 
elsewhere,  is  the  way  in  which  the  language  of  romance 
and  melodrama  has  now  become  true.  It  is  becoming 
the  language  of  our  normal  life.  The  old  phrase  about 
"  dying  for  freedom,"  about  "  Death  being  better  than 
dishonour,"  —  phrases  that  we  thought  were  fitted  for 
the  stage  or  for  children's  stories,  —  are  now  the  ordi- 
nary truths  on  which  we  live.  A  phrase  which  happened 
to  strike  me  was  recorded  of  a  Canadian  soldier  who  went 
down,  I  think,  in  the  Arabic  after  saving  several  people ; 
before  he  sank  he  turned  and  said,  "I  have  served  my 
King  and  country  and  this  is  my  end."  It  was  the  nat- 
ural way  of  expressing  the  plain  fact.  I  read  yesterday 
a  letter  from  a  soldier  at  the  front  about  the  death  of  one 
of  his  fellow  soldiers,  and  the  letter  ended  quite  simply : 
"  After  all  he  has  done  what  we  all  want  to  do  —  die  for 
England."  The  man  who  wrote  it  has  since  then  had  his 
wish.  Or,  again,  if  one  wants  a  phrase  to  live  by  which 
would  a  few  years  ago  have  seemed  somewhat  unreal, 
or  high-falutin,  he  can  take  those  words  of  Miss  Cavell 
that  are  now  in  everybody's  mind,  "I  see  now  that 
patriotism  is  not  enough;  I  must  die  without  hatred  or 
bitterness  towards  any  one." 

Romance  and  melodrama  were  a  memory,  broken 


92  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

fragments  living  on,  of  heroic  ages  in  the  past.  We 
live  no  longer  upon  fragments  and  memories;  we  have 
entered  ourselves  upon  a  heroic  age.  As  forme  personally, 
there  is  one  thought  that  is  always  with  me  as,  no  doubt, 
it  is  with  us  all  —  the  thought  that  other  men  are  dying 
for  me,  better  men,  younger,  with  more  hope  in  their 
lives,  many  of  them  men  whom  I  have  taught  and  loved. 
I  hope  you  will  allow  me  to  say  something  here,  and  will 
not  be  in  any  way  offended  by  the  thought  I  want  to 
express.  Some  of  you  will  be  orthodox  Christians,  and 
will  be  familiar  with  the  thought  of  One  who  loved  you 
dying  for  you.  I  would  like  to  say  that  now  I  seem  to  be 
familiar  with  the  feeling  that  something  innocent,  some- 
thing great,  something  that  loves  me,  has  died,  and  is 
dying  for  me  daily. 

That  is  the  sort  of  community  that  we  now  arc  —  a 
community  in  which  one  man  dies  for  his  brother;  and 
underneath  all  our  hatreds,  all  our  little  angers  and 
quarrels,  we  are  brothers  who  are  ready  to  seal  our 
brotherhood  with  blood.  It  is  for  us  that  these  men  are 
dying,  for  us  the  women,  the  old  men,  and  the  rejected 
men,  and  to  preserve  the  civilization  and  the  common 
life  which  we  are  keeping  alive  and  reshaping,  towards 
wisdom  or  unwisdom,  towards  unity  or  discord.  Ladies 
and  gentlemen,  let  us  be  worthy  of  these  men;  let  us  be 
ready  each  one  with  our  sacrifice  when  it  is  asked.  Let 
us  try  as  citizens  to  live  a  life  which  shall  not  be  a  mock- 
ery to  the  faith  these  men  have  placed  in  us.  Let  us  build 
up  an  England  for  which  these  men,  lying  in  their  scat- 
tered graves  over  the  face  of  the  green  world,  would  have 
been  proud  to  die. 


VI 

DEMOCRATIC  CONTROL  OF  FOREIGN    POLICY1 

Even  if  this  book  were  less  good  than  it  is,  it  would 
deserve  reading  for  its  admirable  manners.  It  does  not, 
indeed,  convince  my  reason,  but  it  leaves  me  with  a 
profound  respect  for  the  tone  and  method  of  English 
politics  at  their  best.  No  one  would  ever  suspect  from 
these  pages  of  temperate  and  courteous  argument  that 
the  author  was  a  man  who  had  just  sacrificed  his  Parlia- 
mentary career  to  his  principles,  whose  meetings  were 
broken  up  by  roughs,  his  person  attacked,  and  his  repu- 
tation assailed  by  gross  calumny.  This  temper  of  mind 
is  not  only  fine  in  itself,  but  particularly  valuable  in  the 
present  instance,  inasmuch  as  it  enables  Mr.  Ponsonby 
to  clarify  and  to  reduce  to  its  true  proportions  a  ques- 
tion on  which  political  opinion  has  tended  to  run  wild. 
Democratic  Control  has  become  a  flag  of  battle.  A 
bugbear  to  most  orthodox  supporters  of  the  Govern- 
ment, it  is  a  saving  ideal  to  many  sensitive  and  high- 
minded  people  who  are  half-maddened  by  the  horrors 
that  have  descended  upon  us,  and  wish  instinctively  to 
explain  them  as  the  chastisement  of  some  obvious  sin. 

Now,  Mr.  Ponsonby  has  really  thought  out  the  details 
of  a  scheme  for  securing  greater  Parliamentary  and 
democratic  control  over  foreign  politics.  [It  is  not  likely 
that  his  whole  scheme  will  ever  be  adopted  as  it  stands; 

1  Review  of  Democracy  and  Diplomacy :  A  Plea  for  Popular  Control 
of  Foreign  Policy,  by  Arthur  Ponsonby,  M.P.   (Methuen.  1915.) 


94  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

but  I  think  it  will  perform  two  public  services.  In  the 
first  place,  if  the  Union  of  Democratic  Control,  to  whom 
the  book  is  dedicated,  adopts  it,  it  will  substitute  a 
definite  programme  for  a  vague  cry;  and,  in  the  second 
place,  I  think  it  will  make  clear  to  most  reasonable 
people  that  a  reform  which  consists  in  certain  far  from 
startling  changes  in  Parliamentary  custom  cannot  possi- 
bly produce  that  transfiguration  of  international  politics 
for  which  so  many  hearts  are  athirst. 

Of  course,  Mr.  Ponsonby's  proposals  for  the  future 
are  based  on  a  reading  of  the  past,  and,  in  my  judgement, 
on  a  very  serious  misreading.  "Diplomacy  has  failed." 
This  is  an  outstanding  "fact  about  which  there  can  be 
no  manner  of  dispute."  I  fear  there  can  and  must  be. 
In  a  sense,  of  course,  diplomacy  has  failed;  just  as 
one  might  say  that  law  had  failed  whenever  a  burglar 
knocked  down  a  policeman.  But  to  most  of  us  it  seems 
a  strangely  shallow  reading  of  events  which  finds  the 
causes  of  the  war  in  any  mere  perversity  of  Foreign 
Offices  or  any  awkwardness  in  diplomatic  machinery. 
It  was  not  any  bungling  of  diplomats  that  united  the 
Powers  of  Europe  against  Napoleon. 

Neither  can  I  for  a  moment  accept  the  statement  that, 
in  Great  Britain,  between  1906  and  1914,  "the  people's 
view  of  international  relations  was  fundamentally  differ- 
ent from  the  traditional  view  of  Governments"  (p.  39), 
or  that  the  House  of  Commons  did  not  know  —  and 
approve  —  the  general  line  of  policy  followed  by  the 
Foreign  Office  (p.  58).  Mr.  Ponsonby  himself  complains 
elsewhere  that  it  was  impossible  to  stir  up  in  the  House 
of  Commons  enough  opposition,  or  even  curiosity,  in  the 
region  of  foreign  policy  to  bring  about  a  debate  (pp.  48, 
90,  99).  This  shows  that  there  was  at  least  no  conscious- 


CONTROL  OF  FOREIGN  POLICY  95 

ness  of  a  "fundamental  difference. "  And  no  one  will  pre- 
tend that  the  secrecy  practised  by  the  Foreign  Office 
was  so  complete  and  successful,  that  the  "  fundamental 
difference"  was  there  without  any  one  ever  suspecting 
it.  Further,  it  seems  to  me  quite  untrue,  indeed  pecul- 
iarly untrue,  to  say  that,  while  Ministers  are  ready 
enough  to  make  war  speeches  when  occasion  demands, 
no  one  "ever  heard  of  a  Minister  going  round  and  mak- 
ing peace  speeches  "bjDeace  time  (p.  29).  I  can  remem- 
ber not  only  "peace  speeches"  by  various  members  of 
the  Government,  but^what  is  far  more  useful,  a  great 
many  semi-official  societies  and  enterprises  devoted  to 
encouraging  good  relations  with  foreign  nations,  espe- 
cially with  Germany.  Such  movements  could  always 
calculate  on  influential  support.  Indeed,  if  Mr.  Pon- 
sonby  can  bring  himself  to  read  a  book  of  Mr.  Maxse's, 
entitled  —  very  suitably — "Germany  on  the  Brain," 
he  will  see  that  many  persons  lived  for  years  in  a  state 
of  habitual  hysterics  at  the  overfriendly  tone  towards 
Germany  exhibited  by  all  the  members  of  the  late 
Government. 

Mr.  Ponsonby  is  on  firmer  ground  when  he  dwells 
upon  the  great  power  held  in  foreign  affairs  by  the  Exec- 
utive, whether  you  regard  that  Executive  as  vested  in 
the  Cabinet  or  in  the  Foreign  Secretary. '  (I  think,  by  the 
way,  that  he  con#derably  underestimates  the  element 
of  Cabinet  control?  Does  he  really,  for  instance,  imagine 
that  Sir  Edward  Grey  could  have  acted  without  the 
support  of  the  Prime  Minister?)  He  quotes  in  his  second 
chapter  some  weighty  opinions  on  this  subject,  especially 
from  Lord  Bryce  and  Mr.  Austen  Chamberlain.  The 
Foreign  Secretary  has,  without  doubt,  of  late  years  ruled 
almost  like  a  monarch  over  his  vast  domain ;  that  is  true, 


96  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

but  what  is  the  reason  of  it?  The  reason  of  it  is  that  both 
Parliament  and  the  country  supported  and  trusted  him. 
Suppose  Mr.  Ponsonby  had  been  Foreign  Secretary  in- 
stead of  Sir  Edward  Grey:  would  he,  too,  have  had  that 
undisputed  authority?  Or  would  he  have  found  the  press 
and  the  House  of  Commons  so  apathetic  and  complai- 
sant? Clearly  not.  The  House  of  Commons  would  have 
bristled  with  threatening  questions  and  motions  of  ad- 
journment and  full-dress  part^ifl^tes  on  foreign  policy. 
And,  as  a  necessary  result,  the^^pral  and  Conservative 
associations  throughout  the  country  would  have  been 
stirred,  and  the  average  voter  would  have  formed  vehe- 
ment opinions  about  Mohammerah  or  Bunder  Abbas  or 
Fez,  as  circumstances  might  dictate. 

In  some  passages  Mr.  Ponsonby  sees  and  even  em- 
phasizes the  truth  of  this.  He  admits  that  Parliament 
has  not  only  been  "ignorant  and  powerless,"  but  "has 
been  content  to  remain  so"  (p.  48).  He  complains  that 
constituents  have  sometimes  actually  expressed  dis- 
approval of  their  member  taking  an  intelligent  interest 
in  the  affairs  of  foreign  countries  (p.  110).  The  blame 
then  lies  rather  with  democracy  than  with  diplomacy, 
but  the  charge  itself  is  true.  Agents  often  have  to  warn 
young  candidates  against  "too  much  foreign  policy." 
This  is  partly,  no  doubt,  due  to  the  mere  narrowness  of 
interest  which  always  goes  with  lack  of  knowledge  and 
weakness  of  imagination;  partly,  I  think,  it  is  due  to  a 
more  special  and  perhaps  temporary  cause.  For  work- 
ingmen  often  feel  an  instinctive,  and  not  unnatural, 
suspicion  of  the  speaker  who  seems  unduly  interested  in 
remote  places  and  peoples.  They  can  be  roused,  of  course, 
by  a  full-blooded  tale  of  atrocities;  but,  short  of  that, 
they  are  either  bored  or  they  suspect  that  the  speaker  has 


CONTROL  OF  FOREIGN  POLICY  97 

some  axe  of  his  own  to  grind.  And  they  know  that  he  has 
led  them  on  to  ground  where  he  can  easily  deceive  them. 
This  attitude  is,  no  doubt,  regrettable.  In  a  properly 
educated  democracy  it  should  be  impossible.  But  it  has 
most  emphatically  its  good  side,  as  I  am  sure  Mr.  Pon- 
sonby  would  be  the  first  to  acknowledge.  It  is  the  out- 
come of  a  state  of  mind  which  has  no  fears,  no  aggres- 
sive designs,  and  no  grudges  against  foreign  nations;  an 
insular  state  of  mind  -which  is  concentrated  on  the  im- 
provement of  our  own  national  conditions,  and  is  dis- 
posed to  let  other  people  look  after  themselves.  I  have 
often  been  struck,  when  conversing  with  foreigners,  — 
Frenchmen,  Germans,  Italians,  and  above  all  members 
of  the  Balkan  States,  —  by  the  vivid  and  detailed  inter- 
est they  show  in  alliances  and  combinations  and  possi- 
bilities of  war,  and  the  ready  way  in  which  they  accept 
the  fact  that  some  nation  or  other  is  "the  enemy." 
The  average,  moderate-minded  Englishman  is  not  at 
home  in  this  atmosphere.  He  does  not  like  to  talk  about 
wars  and  intrigues,  and  he  will  not  calmly  accept  the 
suggestion  that  any  nation  is,  as  a  matter  of  course,  "the 
enemy.' '  He  has  a  feeling  that  the  whole  subject  of 
foreign  politics,  as  it  is  usually  discussed,  is  unwhole- 
some. It  suggests  trains  of  thought  which  had  better  not 
be  in  people's  minds  at  all.  There  is  obviously  a  great 
deal  of  somewhat  confused  wisdom  in  this  feeling;  and 
I  am  not  surprised  to  find  Mr.  Balfour  saying  that,  in 
his  opinion,  when  once  people  "are  fairly  confident  that 
the  general  lines  pursued  are  not  inconsistent  with  na- 
tional welfare,  then,  I  think,  probably  the  less  time 
given  to  foreign  affairs  the  better"  (p.  122).  It  is  cer- 
tainly a  happy  nation  that  need  not  think  much  about 
foreign  affairs;  it  is  probably  a  wise  nation  which,  if  it 


98  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

has  to  think,  docs  its  thinking  as  rapidly  and  effectively 
as  possible,  and  then  occupies  its  mind  with  safer  sub- 
jects. 

However  that  may  be,  Mr.  Ponsonby  proves  his  point 
as  to  the  bare  fact.    Our  foreign  policy  has,  since  the 
settling-up  of  the  Boer  War,  pursued  its  way  almost  un- 
checked, and  to  a  large  extent  uncriticized,  by  Par- 
liament or  by  public  opinion.   We  are  now  landed  in  a 
great  disaster,  and  Mr.  Ponsonby  assumes,  without  any 
present  attempt  at  proof,  that  this  disaster  might  have 
been  avoided  by  a  different  foreign  policy.  He  does  not 
say  what  the  right  policy  would  at  any  point  have  been; 
that  is  not  the  subject  of  his  book;  but  he  believes  that 
it  might  have  been  attained  if  the  people  of  England  had 
exercised  a  real  and  active  control  over  the  Foreign 
Office.   That  is,  if  I  understand  him  aright,  he  believes 
that  our  policy  would  have  been  wiser  and  our  influence 
for  peace  greater  if  the  Foreign  Secretary  had  always 
been  compelled  to  ask  himself,  at  each  new  step:  "What 
will  Parliament,  what  will  my  constituents  think  of  this?  " 
or  "How  will  this  look  under  the  test  of  a  general  elec- 
tion?" He  would  admit,  I  presume,  that  such  a  policy 
must  involve  a  certain  loss  in  initiative,  in  decisiveness, 
and  in  rapidity.  And  he  does  not  pretend  that  the  ordi- 
nary mass  of  electors  have  more  knowledge  or  more  cool- 
ness or  —  I  think  —  higher  principles  than  Mr.  Asquith 
and  Sir  Edward  Grey.  But  he  does  believe  that,  in  spite 
of  all  drawbacks,  this  publicity,  this  constant  reference 
to  the  plain  man,  would  somehow  have  resulted  in  the 
production  of  a  better  spirit,  and  have  let  gusts  of  fresh 
and  wholesome  air  into  the  stale  corridors  of  diplomacy. 
I  feel  on  this  subject  that  the  argument  of  the  book  fails 
to  convince  me. 


CONTROL  OF  FOREIGN  POLICY  99 

There  are  several  points,  of  course,  which  one  willingly 
concedes  to  Mr.  Ponsonby.  If  there  had  been  demo- 
cratic control  in  Germany,  there  would  probably  have 
been  a  Social-Democratic  Government,  or  at  least  a 
liberal  and  peace-seeking  Government.  But  in  France 
and  England  there  were  already  liberal  and  peace-seek- 
ing Governments,  and  in  Russia  a  Government  which, 
whatever  may  be  thought  of  its  nascent  Liberalism,  was 
at  least  most  earnest  for  peace.  The  Entente  Powers 
possessed  already  the  pacific  tone  which  Mr.  Ponsonby's 
reforms  profess  to  offer  them.  And  it  does  not  seem 
reasonable  to  apply  a  particular  remedy  to  the  peace- 
seekers  because  it  would  do  good  to  the  war-seekers. 
Again,  most  persons  of  experience  will  concede  to  Mr. 
Ponsonby  that  they  have  occasionally  heard  individual 
diplomats  and  empire-builders  talk  about  foreign  affairs 
in  a  reckless  and  intriguing  spirit,  which  would  certainly 
not  be  countenanced  by  the  House  of  Commons  or  an 
average  popular  constituency.  A  great  deal  of  such  talk 
is  not  to  be  taken  seriously.  It  is  the  form  in  which  these 
people  take  their  romance.  But  sometimes,  no  doubt,  it 
represents  real  opinions,  and  sometimes  the  holders  of 
such  opinions  do  acquire  a  temporary  and  surreptitious 
influence  over  public  affairs.  But  my  own  experience  has 
been  that,  though  they  always  dread  the  "  Talking  Shop  " 
and  the  ''British  Public/'  they  dread  "Downing  Street " 
as  much  or  even  more.  And  rightly  so,  for  as  a  matter 
of  history  during  the  last  century  the  Foreign  Office  has 
acted  almost  always  as  a  drag  on  these  forward  or  expan- 
sionist movements,  and  a  far  more  effective  drag  than 
"the  public"  can  be,  for  the  mere  reason  that  it  knows 
more  and  is  harder  to  deceive.  The  Foreign  Office  is 
normally  engaged  on  a  mass  of  useful  and  unobtrusive 


100  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

work,  which  the  public  never  cares  to  read  about,  from 
the  settling  of  small  disputes  by  small  agreements  to  the 
clearing  of  international  waterways  and  the  preservation 
of  hippopotami.  And  international  friction  is  what  it 
most  detests. 

This  shows,  I  think,  that  the  vital  issue  at  stake  in 
foreign  politics  is  much  more  an  issue  between  reason 
and  unreason,  between  prudence  and  recklessness,  be- 
tween moderation  and  chauvinism,  than,  as  Mr. 
Ponsonby  insists  on  regarding  it,  between  democratic 
and  oligarchic  sentiment.  I  suspect  really  that  he  and 
his  friends  have  been  misled  by  a  false  analogy.  A  great 
many  abuses  in  the  past  have  been  remedied  by  a  mere 
extension  of  the  franchise  or  a  letting-in  of  democratic 
fresh  air.  Cases  of  class  privilege  and  class  oppression, 
of  indefensible  favouritism  or  nepotism  or  traditional 
abuse,  these  and  many  others  can  be  treated  by  the 
simple  application  of  publicity  and  democratic  control. 
These  cases  mostly  occur  in  home  politics,  because  there 
the  most  common  conflicts  are  class  conflicts;  the  facts, 
if  not  simple,  are  at  least  familiar;  the  issues  to  be  de- 
cided are  very  largely  moral  issues,  and  the  people  are 
called  in  to  give,  not  an  expert,  but  a  disinterested  judge- 
ment. Now,  as  a  general  rule  in  foreign  politics  the  very 
reverse  holds  good.  The  conflicts  are  seldom  or  never 
class  conflicts;  the  facts  and  the  whole  state  of  circum- 
stances surrounding  the  facts  are  unfamiliar,  and  can- 
not be  understood  without  special  study;  the  issues  are 
seldom  plain  issues  of  right  or  wrong.  Furthermore,  the 
people  of  any  one  nation  is,  unfortunately,  not  dis- 
interested. The  disinterested  arbitrator,  whom  analogy 
demands,  is  not  any  single  "people,"  but  the  Concert 
of  Europe  —  a  different  story  altogether.   Neither  the 


CONTROL  OF  FOREIGN  POLICY  101 

quality  of  disinterestedness,  nor  the  kindred  qualities  of 
reasonableness,  tact,  self-control,  and  knowledge,  which 
are  specially  required  for  the  handling  of  foreign  contro- 
versies, can  be  secured  by  any  mere  mechanical  method 
such  as  the  application  of  democratic  control. 

Of  course,  there  are  sometimes  cases  in  foreign  policy 
where  the  democratic  remedy  is  indicated;  cases  where 
a  Government  is  in  some  sense  conspiring  against  the 
wishes  of  the  people,  or  where  a  bureaucracy  is,  for  the 
sake  of  avoiding  friction,  tolerating  some  outrageous 
wrong.  In  both  types  of  case  I  think  that  our  own 
political  practice  does  insure  publicity;  certainly  any 
notion  that  a  British  Government  can  really  conceal 
from  all  eyes  the  main  trend  of  its  foreign  policy  is  the 
wildest  dreaming;  but,  if  Mr.  Ponsonby  can  suggest  any 
method  by  which  to  increase  our  assurance  in  this 
matter,  he  will  be  working  in  the  spirit  of  the  Consti- 
tution as  well  as  forwarding  the  cause  of  democracy,  and 
we  must  listen  to  his  proposal  with  all  sympathy. 

And  here  I  will  make  my  largest  concession  to  him  in 
the  matter  of  our  recent  history.  I  think  it  is  true,  as  he 
says,  that  owing  to  some  extreme  reticence  in  Ministers 
and  other  leaders  of  the  nation,  there  grew  up  before  the 
war  a  great  divergence  of  expectation  between  the  mind 
of  the  Foreign  Office  and  that  of  the  country,  between 
those  behind  the  scenes  and  the  mass  of  outsiders.  This 
divergence,  I  admit,  was  regrettable ;  but  I  do  not  think 
it  arose  from  the  cause  which  Mr.  Ponsonby  assigns. 
It  was  not  because  the  Foreign  Office  was  secretly 
aggressive  and  dreaded  peaceful  opinion.  It  was  almost 
exactly  the  opposite.  It  was  because  the  Foreign  Office 
was  straining  every  nerve  for  its  twofold  object,  and  it 
dreaded  outside  disturbance.  Its  object  was,  if  possible, 


102  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

ponce;  if  peace  failed,  security.  It  was  trying  to  appease 
the  sensitiveness  of  all  reasonable  Germany  and  at  the 
same  time  to  guard  against  the  intrigues  of  militarist 
Germany.  It  was  negotiating  with  a  half-declared 
enemy,  armed  to  the  teeth,  demanding  world-power  and 
ready  to  spring,  muttering  demands  which  seemed 
vague  and  sinister  and  which  yet  were  well  worth  satisfy- 
ing if  they  were  capable  of  being  satisfied;  a  half-declared 
enemy  who  had  once  been  a  friend  and  might  still  by 
supreme  tact  and  patience  be  reconverted  to  friendship; 
and  in  that  crisis  it  did  not  want  the  cooperation  of  any 
one  it  could  not  trust.  It  told  no  falsehood  and  practised 
no  intrigues.  But  it  hid  its  difficulties;  it  spoke  with  a 
smiling  face;  it  pretended  always  that  things  were  less 
terrible  than  they  were.  And  when  at  last  the  storm 
broke,  we  who  had  not  been  fully  warned  were  amazed 
and  angry,  and  some  of  us  thought  we  had  been  cheated. 
Let  Mr.  Ponsonby  look  again  at  the  writings  of  the 
Haldane-hunters  and  the  other  wolves  of  Jingoism. 
What  is  it  that  they  complain  of?  It  is  that  again  and 
again  there  were  dangerous  situations  out  of  which  they 
could  have  made  capital,  and  Lord  Haldane  and  the  rest 
of  the  Government  did  not  give  them  the  opportunity. 
German  agents  worked  up  sedition  in  India,  German 
money  corrupted  the  gendarmes  in  Persia,  German  dip- 
lomats committed  breaches  of  diplomatic  honour;  and 
the  Government  kept  it  all  dark !  All  the  yellow  press  was 
waiting  outside  the  door,  longing  for  information,  only 
too  anxious  to  help;  all  the  people  who  wanted  to  turn 
out  the  Government,  with  civil  war  or  without  civil  war; 
the  schemers  who  wanted  militarism  for  the  sake  of 
reaction,  the  lunatics  who  wanted  trouble  because  they 
thought  it  fun.  I  quite  admit  that  they  would  not  have 


CONTROL  OF  FOREIGN   POLICY  103 

had  entirely  their  own  way:  the  other  side  would  have 
had  its  say  also.  But  would  there  be  much  safety  in  that? 
Mr.  Shaw  would  have  rushed  to  preserve  the  peace  with 
criticisms  the  reverse  of  sedative.  Some  Syndicalists  and 
some  Irishmen  of  extreme  views  would  have  expressed 
their  preference  for  the  foreigner  over  the  English 
capitalist.  Mr.  Ponsonby  himself  ...  I  would  not  for 
the  world  attack  him.  I  believe  he  would  have  used  all 
his  influence  absolutely  and  disinterestedly  for  good. 
But  would  he  and  his  group,  in  a  crisis  like  that,  have 
supported  the  Government  with  real  and  effective 
friendship,  have  strengthened  their  hands  and  tried  to 
show  them  that  they  could  firmly  count  on  the  whole- 
some part  of  the  nation?  I  believe  they  would;  but  I 
cannot  blame  the  Foreign  Office  for  doubting  it.  The 
nation  as  a  whole  would  have  been  behind  the  Govern- 
ment. I  have  no  doubt  of  that.  But  I  believe  that  dur- 
ing those  years  the  more  thoughtful  part  of  the  nation 
actually  preferred  not  to  be  consulted.  And  if  any  reader 
feels  vehemently  otherwise,  I  would  ask  him  to  look  up 
the  citations  from  the  English  press  quoted  in  Revent- 
low's  important  book,  "  Deutschlands  Auswartige  Pol- 
itik,"  and  then  ask  himself  whether  he  would  care  to 
have  such  allies  talking  beside  his  Foreign  Secretary 
when  negotiations  were  peculiarly  delicate. 

"Then,"  Mr.  Ponsonby  may  reply,  "you  confess  quite 
frankly  that  you  do  not  trust  the  people?"  Trust  is  a 
limited,  not  an  unlimited,  quantity;  but  I  could  answer 
that  question  better  if  I  knew  exactly  what  it  meant,  if 
I  knew  whether  Mr.  Ponsonby  was  referring  to  an  actual 
or  an  ideal  people.  For  he,  like  the  rest  of  us,  varies  be- 
tween the  two  conceptions.  At  times  he  admits  that  the 
mass  of  the  people  is  ignorant,  indifferent,  apt  to  be 


104  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

swayed  by  gusts  of  passion  and  deceived  by  interested 
newspapers,  and  that  the  good  of  its  participation  in 
active  politics  chiefly  depends  on  the  extreme  danger  of 
trying  to  keep  it  out.  At  others  he  still  speaks  of  that 
ideal  people  whose  lineaments  have  really  come  down  to 
us  from  Shelley  and  Godwin;  which  looks  straight  at  all 
questions  without  prejudice  or  personal  interest  and, 
therefore,  with  universal  good-will  and  unclouded  moral 
judgement.  When  we  think  of  "the  people"  as  control- 
ling our  politics,  do  we  mean  a  sort  of  residue  which 
remains  after  removing  all  special  classes  and  all  per- 
sons of  outstanding  character  or  knowledge  —  a  people 
which  reads  the  yellowest  type  of  newspaper  and  finds 
its  heroes  on  the  race-course  and  its  politics  in  the  music- 
hall?  Or  do  we  mean  the  sort  of  people  which  rises  to 
the  mind's  eye  as  one  returns  from  a  meeting  of  the 
Workers'  Educational  Association  or  a  particularly  good 
trade-union  discussion?  And  can  Mr.  Ponsonby  see  any 
way  whereby  the  first  people  shall  not  snatch  the  deci- 
sion out  of  the  hands  of  the  second?  In  nine  cases  out 
of  ten,  doubtless,  the  common  sense  of  the  nation  will 
assert  itself.  I  have  no  doubt  of  that.  But  in  the  tenth 
case,  in  the  critical  and  exciting  and  specially  dangerous 
case,  with  organized  bad  influences  ready  to  play  on 
public  opinion?  No;  undesirable  as  secrecy  is  on  a  mul- 
titude of  grounds,  I  cannot  see  that  perpetual  publicity, 
as  such,  is  any  safe  road  to  the  keeping  of  peace. 

I  grant,  of  course,  fully  that,  in  foreign  affairs  as  in 
all  the  rest  of  politics,  the  will  of  the  people  must  be 
supreme,  and  the  ultimate  control  must  be  with  the 
citizens  of  the  country  acting  through  Parliament.  But 
I  do  not  believe  that  increased  democracy  will  serve  as 
a  substitute  for  character  and  wisdom,  any  more  than  an 


CONTROL  OF  FOREIGN  POLICY  105 

artificially  restricted  franchise  will.  Our  foreign  politics 
are  not  below  the  average  standard  of  the  nation;  I  be- 
lieve myself  that  they  have  been  well  above  it.  I  believe 
that,  under  the  present  Foreign  Secretary,  our  foreign 
policy  has  been  conducted  with  as  great  care  and  pru- 
dence and  with  more  than  as  great  high-mindedness  and 
resolute  honesty  of  purpose,  as  that  of  any  nation  in 
modern  history.  But,  if  we  are  ever  to  rise  to  a  foreign 
policy  which  shall  be  still  higher,  more  daring  and 
idealist,  more  ready  to  run  risks  for  great  ends,  and  more 
brilliant  in  meeting  perils  as  yet  far  off  and  scarcely  dis- 
cernible, it  will  not  be  by  any  mere  democratization  of 
machinery;  it  will  only  be  by  some  enormous  change  of 
heart,  in  which  the  masses  of  the  nation  must  take  part 
fully  as  much  as  their  rulers. 

I  need  hardly  assure  those  who  know  Mr.  Ponsonby 
that  his  concrete  proposals  are  in  no  way  either  un- 
practical or  revolutionary.  In  part,  he  merely  calls 
attention  to  those  reforms  in  the  Foreign  Office  which 
have  been  recommended  by  the  recent  Civil  Service 
Commission.  Here  every  one  will  agree  with  him. 
Further,  he  proposes  two  changes  in  what  we  may  call 
political  procedure  and  one  important,  but  not  unreason- 
able, change  in  the  Constitution.  There  is  to  be  (1)  an 
annual  debate,  occupying  at  least  two  days,  on  the 
Foreign  Office  Vote,  in  which  the  Foreign  Secretary 
shall  expound  his  whole  policy.  Besides  this  (2)  it  shall 
be  the  recognized  duty  of  the  Foreign  Secretary  to 
make  periodical  pronouncements  in  the  country  on 
foreign  affairs,  especially  when  Parliament  is  not  sitting. 
These  proposals  could  hardly  be  made  compulsory,  but 
they  both  seem  desirable,  so  far  as  an  outsider  can  judge. 


10G  FAITH,  WAR,  AND   POLICY 

The  country  would  certainly  be  glad  to  have  both  the 
debate  and  the  periodical  speeches,  and  it  is  difficult  to 
see  that  anything  but  good  would  in  normal  circum- 
stances accrue  to  the  Government.  The  sort  of  Foreign 
Secretary  whose  speeches  would  be  a  public  danger 
would  be  sure  to  make  them  in  any  case.  The  change  in 
the  Constitution  falls  under  three  heads,  and  presents 
great  difficulty.  At  present,  as  we  all  know,  Parliament 
is  a  deliberative  and  legislative  body;  the  executive 
power  is  vested  in  the  Sovereign,  acting  through  his 
Ministers.  In  practice,  this  sharp  distinction  is  in  many 
ways  softened.  A  Government  can  be  questioned  about 
its  executive  acts,  and  cannot  continue  in  existence  if 
those  acts  are  definitely  disapproved  by  the  House  of 
Commons.  The  Home  Secretary,  for  instance,  can  de- 
cide whether  a  particular  condemned  criminal  shall  be 
hanged  or  pardoned.  If  he  knows  the  House  wants  the 
man  pardoned,  he  can  still  hang  him,  but  he  does  so  at 
his  peril;  because,  though  the  man  will  remain  hanged, 
the  Home  Secretary  will  not  remain  Home  Secretary. 
Consequently,  he  will  never  hang  a  man  against  what  he 
believes  to  be  the  general  feeling  of  the  House,  unless  he 
has  very  strong  reasons  and  is  confident  that  he  can 
justify  his  action. 

Similarly,  the  Government  has  at  present  the  power 
of  (1)  making  a  treaty,  (2)  making  an  agreement  or  al- 
liance with  a  foreign  country,  and  (3)  declaring  war. 
Mr.  Ponsonby  wishes  to  make  all  these  powers  depend- 
ent on  previous  consent  of  Parliament.  The  question  is 
difficult  and  merits  a  full  discussion.  The  case  for  Mr. 
Ponsonby's  reform  is  obvious.  There  is  certainly  some- 
thing anomalous  in  the  conception  that  a  Government, 
which  cannot  pass  the  smallest  bill  without  full  Parlia- 


CONTROL  OF  FOREIGN  POLICY  107 

mentary  debate,  should  be  able  to  negotiate  a  treaty  or 
form  an  alliance  or  even  declare  war  without  saying  a 
word  to  any  one.  The  case  on  the  other  side  appears  to 
rest  on  two  arguments.  First,  there  is  a  constitutional 
argument.  Parliament  is  the  Legislature,  not  the  Exec- 
utive. It  is  from  every  point  of  view  unfitted  for  ex- 
ecutive work.  It  contains  the  executive  body  and  can 
dismiss  it,  but  it  must  allow  that  body  to  do  its  own 
work  in  its  own  way.  True,  Parliament  may  have  to 
allow  many  small  things  to  be  done  against  its  wishes 
rather  than  take  the  drastic  step  of  turning  the  Govern- 
ment out;  but,  it  is  argued,  that  arrangement  just  gives 
the  Executive  sufficient  elasticity  and  power  of  real 
initiative.  The  discretion,  no  doubt,  is  larger  in  foreign 
affairs  than  in  home  affairs,  but  it  is  not  different  in 
qualitjr.  And  foreign  affairs,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  require 
that  larger  discretion. 

The  second  is  a  practical  argument.  It  is  pointed  out 
that  to  make  treaties  dependent  on  the  approval  of 
Parliament  is  greatly  to  weaken  the  bargaining  power 
of  the  Government.  For  a  treaty  is  always  a  matter  of 
give  and  take;  each  party  has  to  make  concessions. 
And,  obviously,  a  foreign  Power  will  often  be  willing  to 
make  a  concession  when  assured  of  a  firm  bargain,  which 
it  would  not  make  if  it  had  to  take  the  risk  of  having  the 
whole  bargain  thrown  back  on  its  hands.  For  example, 
in  the  Anglo-Russian  Treaty  of  1907,  Russia  recognized 
our  right  to  control  the  foreign  relations  of  the  Amir, 
which  she  had  always  disputed  before.  But  would  she 
have  done  so  if  she  had  known  that  the  treaty  as  a  whole 
was  subject  to  the  approval  of  the  British  Parliament, 
and  that  she  might  find  herself  in  the  position  of  having 
gained  nothing,  but  given  up  an  important  point  which 


108  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

could  never  quite  be  recovered?  The  proposed  limita- 
tion certainly  weakens  the  Government's  bargaining 
power;  it  also  makes  treaties  harder  to  conclude.  For 
after  almost  every  important  treaty,  you  find  the  re- 
spective Parliaments  complaining  that  their  own  Min- 
ister has  not  driven  a  hard  enough  bargain.  The  Par- 
liaments would  thus  be  less  likely  to  agree  than  the 
Ministers.  And,  further,  a  House  which  wants  to  quar- 
rel with  a  Minister  about  other  matters  can  often  show 
its  annoyance  by  rejecting  a  treaty;  as,  for  instance,  the 
United  States  Senate  rejected  the  Arbitration  Treaty 
with  England.  Considering  that  most  treaties  —  es- 
pecially if  we  remember  the  host  of  small  but  valuable 
treaties  which  attract  no  public  notice  —  are  attempts 
to  settle  international  difficulties  and  remove  causes  of 
quarrel,  while  every  treaty  makes  some  demand  upon 
international  good-will,  it  would  seem  a  deplorable  thing 
to  increase  the  obstacles  in  the  way  of  concluding 
them. 

Furthermore,  it  is  pleaded  that,  as  a  matter  of  experi- 
ence, there  has  been  of  late  years  in  England  no  abuse  of 
any  of  these  special  powers.  Before  the  crisis  of  1914  the 
Prime  Minister  and  the  Foreign  Secretary  were  able  to 
assure  the  House  that  "  there  was  no  secret  engagement 
which  they  would  spring  upon  the  House.  The  House 
was  free  to  decide  in  any  crisis  what  the  British  attitude 
should  be."  (Grey,  August  3,  1914.)  The  treaties  con- 
cluded have  mostly  been  treaties  of  arbitration  or  simi- 
lar clearings-up ;  the  main  exception  was  probably  the 
Anglo-Russian  Convention  of  1907,  which,  curiously 
enough,  was  announced  to  the  Duma  while  still  unknown 
to  the  British  Parliament.  As  to  declarations  of  war, 
Mr.  Ponsonby  quotes  a  startling  statement  from  Homer 


CONTROL  OF  FOREIGN  POLICY  109 

Lea  to  the  effect  that  in  the  nineteenth  century  Great 
Britain  embarked  on  no  less  than  eighty  wars  with  no 
prior  declaration  at  all.  This  figure,  if  in  any  sense  cor- 
rect, must  be  obtained  by  counting  every  small  expedi- 
tion against  a  savage  tribe  as  a  war.  Such  expeditions 
are  almost  always  caused  by  incidents  which  make  decla- 
rations of  war  unsuitable.  In  the  case  of  a  war  with  any 
civilized  nation  it  is  almost  unthinkable  that  a  British 
Government  should  either  begin  a  war  without  declara- 
tion, or  declare  war  without  having  made  sure  of  the 
overwhelming  support  of  Parliament  and  the  country. 
The  whole  course  of  proceedings  in  1914,  and  earlier, 
shows  with  what  iron  determination  Grey  refused  to 
make  any  agreement  or  alliance  or  promise  on  his  own 
responsibility,  without  the  support  of  Parliament,  and 
how  carefully  the  Government  explained  the  whole  situa- 
tion to  the  House  of  Commons  before  taking  any  of  the 
critical  steps.  True,  if  the  House  had  insisted  on  pre- 
serving peace  with  Germany  in  1914,  Grey  would  pre- 
sumably have  resigned.  That  only  shows  that  a  Minister 
who  does  not  possess  the  confidence  of  the  House  cannot 
continue  in  office. 

Other  countries,  which  possess  written  constitutions, 
have  various  rules  limiting  the  power  of  the  Executive 
in  treaty-making.  We,  with  our  unwritten  tradition,  are 
probably  in  a  transition  stage.  The  Executive  has  in 
practice  made  a  habit  of  carefully  consulting  the  House, 
and,  indeed,  is  attacked  by  critics  both  at  home  and 
abroad  for  hampering  its  own  effectiveness  by  doing  so. 
It  is  argued  that  if  the  British  Government  had  had  the 
courage  to  contract  definite  alliances  and  to  announce 
definite  lines  of  policy,  without  any  reference  to  public 
opinion  or  Parliament,  the  European  situation  would 


110  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

have  been  clarified  and  Germany  saved  from  the  blunder 
of  trading  too  far  upon  our  notorious  indecision  and 
pacifism.  I  do  not  share  this  view;  but  I  incline  to  think 
that  it  is  at  least  as  plausible  as  Mr.  Ponsonby's. 

In  the  main,  therefore,  while  believing  that  all  Mr. 
Ponsonby's  recommendations  deserve  sympathetic  con- 
sideration, and  some  of  them  are  almost  beyond  ques- 
tion right,  I  am  not  convinced  that  they  would  lead  to 
any  appreciable  increase  in  the  control  exercised  by  the 
nation  at  large  over  foreign  politics,  much  less  that,  if 
they  had  been  put  in  practice  ten  years  ago,  they  would 
have  had  the  faintest  effect  in  saving  Europe  from  its 
present  calamities.  I  do  not  wish  to  say  that  changes  of 
procedure  are  not  important  things.  In  many  ways  they 
are.  But  the  lack  of  effective  democratic  control  over 
foreign  politics  is  surely  due  to  larger  and  deeper  causes 
than  these  reforms  can  touch.  The  masses  of  the  coun- 
try, as  Mr.  Ponsonby  repeatedly  tells  us,  are  not  inter- 
ested in  foreign  politics  and  do  not  want  to  hear  about 
them.  The  lack  of  interest  depends  on  lack  of  knowledge, 
and  the  lack  of  knowledge  on  lack  of  opportunity.  The 
people  who  are  interested  in  remote  places  are  normally 
the  few  who  happen  to  have  travelled  there,  —  a  few 
officials,  a  few  traders,  and  a  few  rich  men  with  the 
taste  for  roaming.  Even  the  countries  nearest  to  us  are 
seldom  visited,  and  their  languages  seldom  spoken,  ex- 
cept by  the  leisured  classes  of  society.  It  is  hard  to  see 
any  way  out  of  this;  the  leisured  classes  must  continue 
to  have  the  interest  and  the  knowledge,  and  therefore 
the  main  control.  The  working-classes,  I  fully  agree, 
have  every  right  to  be  suspicious  and  to  appoint  their 
Parliamentary  watch-dogs.  They  have  not  been  in  any 
way  betrayed,  but  they  are  quite  right  to  take  precau- 


CONTROL  OF  FOREIGN  POLICY  111 

tions  against  being  betrayed.   I  hardly  see  how  they  can 
do  more. 

Except,  indeed,  in  one  way:  the  way  frankly  recom- 
mended by  Mr.  Bertrand  Russell  in  a  little  brochure  pub- 
lished by  the  Labour  press.  His  remedy  is  deliberately 
to  make  foreign  policy  a  party  question,  and  surround  it 
with  that  exciting  and  inflammatory  atmosphere  which 
can  be  trusted  to  make  the  average  voter  attend.  For 
the  dullest  or  most  abstruse  subject  becomes  interesting 
as  soon  as  our  acquaintances  begin  fighting  about  it. 

Of  course,  Mr.  Russell  has  a  theory  which  justifies  his 
gospel  of  strife — the  theory  that  our  recent  policy  "  rep- 
resents merely  a  closing-up  of  the  ranks  among  the  gov- 
erning classes  against  their  common  enemy,  the  people" 
(p.  70).  But  not  being  able  to  share  that  view,  I  confess 
that  this  proposal  repels  me.  If  the  party  fight  comes 
about  because  of  a  real  and  grave  difference  of  belief, 
then  by  all  means  let  it  come.  There  are  cases  where 
silence  and  acquiescence  might  be  a  greater  evil  than  any 
strife  of  parties.  But  a  deliberate  encouragement  of 
strife  for  the  sake  of  attracting  popular  interest  seems 
to  me  a  deplorable  thing  even  in  home  matters,  and 
considerably  worse  in  foreign.  The  inflammatory  atmos- 
phere may  engender  the  necessary  passion  for  over- 
turning some  obvious  wrong;  but  it  does  not  make  for 
truth  or  understanding  or  justice,  or  the  other  qualities 
that  are  most  needed  in  diplomacy.  If  the  party  in 
power  is  engaged  on  a  policy  which  the  party  out  of 
power  considers  really  iniquitous,  of  course  the  latter  is 
bound  to  protest  and  oppose,  and  to  announce  that  when 
it  gets  into  power  its  own  policy  will  be  different.  But 
the  fact  of  so  violent  a  divergence  between  parties  is  in 
itself  a  misfortune.  It  drives  both  parties  into  dangerous 


112  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

courses,  and  it  clearly  weakens  the  nation  as  a  whole. 
For  a  nation's  enmity  becomes  less  formidable,  and  her 
friendship  less  attractive,  when  both  are  liable  to  be 
reversed  at  the  next  general  election. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  continuity  of  our  foreign 
policy  since  the  South  African  War  has  been  due,  not  to 
the  special  desire  of  the  two  parties  to  be  amiable  with 
one  another,  —  they  were  singularly  free  from  any  such 
weakness,  —  but  simply  to  the  facts  of  the  situation. 
After  a  difference  which  rent  the  nation  in  two,  and 
which  was  settled  on  definitely  Liberal  lines,  there  arose 
a  situation  in  Europe  about  which  most  well-informed 
persons,  whether  Conservative  or  Liberal,  took  more  or 
less  the  same  view.  This  is  the  fundamental  fact  which 
has  ruled  our  whole  policy.  No  doubt  each  of  the  two 
parties  abandoned  something  of  their  special  predilec- 
tions. The  imperialists  accepted  frankly  the  principle 
that  the  Empire  must  not  be  increased;  the  Liberals 
reluctantly  agreed  to  enormous  naval  estimates.  It  is 
quite  possible,  now  that  the  disaster  we  dreaded  has 
come  upon  us,  for  each  to  imagine  that  if  he  had  had  his 
complete  way,  things  might  have  been  better.  Person- 
ally I  doubt  it.  And  I  think  that,  even  if  a  slight  twist 
in  one  direction  or  the  other  would  have  been  an  ad- 
vantage, that  lost  advantage  was  more  than  compen- 
sated by  the  fact  that  our  policy  was  known  to  be  per- 
manent and  our  word  could  be  trusted  by  friend  and 
foe. 

"Then  you  are  content,  are  you?"  a  reader  may  say 
to  me.  "The  policy  of  our  Foreign  Office  was  ideally 
right,  and  the  end  to  which  it  has  led  us  is  quite  un- 
objectionable?" No;  the  end  has  been  disaster.  It  has 
been    shipwreck.     But  not  every  wrecked    ship  was 


CONTROL  OF  FOREIGN  POLICY  113 

wrecked  by  the  fault  of  its  captain.  I  imagine  that  since 
August,  1914,  almost  every  human  being  in  Great 
Britain  has  tried,  with  whatever  knowledge  he  pos- 
sessed, to  think  what  differences  in  our  policy  would 
have  averted  this  war  at  some  cost  not  greater  than  the 
war  itself.  And,  so  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  read,  no 
one  has  found  a  credible  answer.  Minor  faults  have 
been  pointed  out,  odd  lacks  of  information  or  energy  or 
tact  or  initiative,  such  as  are  to  be  expected  in  a  service 
containing  vast  numbers  of  men  and  spread  all  over  the 
world;  but  no  fundamental  wrongness,  no  evil  intent  or 
folly.  The  fact  seems  to  be  that,  if,  some  years  ago,  an 
angel  had  set  himself  to  the  task  of  saving  Europe,  he 
would  not  have  begun  by  altering  British  policy.  He 
would  have  begun  by  something  quite  else. 


VII 

HOW  WE  STAND  NOW  ■ 
(March,  1016) 

A  few  weeks  ago  I  was  giving  a  lecture  to  a  certain 
Scandinavian  society,  and  was  asked  after  the  lecture  to 
sign  my  name  in  the  society's  book.  As  I  looked  through 
the  names  of  the  previous  lecturers  who  had  signed,  I 
noticed  the  signature  of  Maximilian  Harden.  I  inquired 
about  his  lecture  —  it  was  given  before  the  war,  in  1913 
—  and  heard  that  it  had  been  splendid.  It  had,  in  the 
first  place,  lasted  two  hours  — a  dangerous  excellence  — 
and  had  dealt  with  Germany's  Place  in  the  Sun.  The 
lecturer  had  explained  how  Germany  was  the  first  of 
nations  in  all  matters  that  really  count:  first  in  things  of 
the  intellect,  in  Wissenschaft,  science,  history,  theology; 
first  socially  and  politically,  inasmuch  as  her  people  were 
at  once  the  most  enlightened  and  most  contented,  the 
freest  and  best  organized  and  most  devotedly  loyal;  first 
in  military  power  and  in  material  and  commercial 
progress;  most  of  all  first  in  her  influence  over  the  rest 
of  the  world  and  the  magic  of  her  incomparable  Kultur. 
She  needed  to  expand  and  was  bound  to  expand,  both 
in  Europe  and  beyond  Europe.  This  could  be  achieved 
without  difficulty;  for  Europe  was  already  half  con- 
quered, and  England  had  been  very  obliging,  in  the 
matter  of  colonies.  So  far  the  first  hour  and  a  half;  then 
came  the  climax.  This  expansion  would  be  of  little  use 

1  Address  to  the  Fight  for  Right  League. 


HOW  WE  STAND  NOW  115 

if  it  were  obtained  by  mere  peaceful  growth.  Germany's 
power  needed  a  stronger  foundation.  It  must  be  built  on 
a  pedestal  of  war  and  "cemented  with  blood  and  iron." 
This  lecture,  if  it  could  be  unearthed,  would  form  a 
curious  comment  on  Harden's  recent  utterances  in  favour 
of  peace  and  good- will;  but  that  is  not  what  I  wish  to 
dwell  upon.  I  want  merely  to  take  this  doctrine  as  a 
sort  of  text,  and  carefully  to  consider  its  implications.  I 
do  not  say  for  a  moment  that  it  is,  or  ever  was,  the 
doctrine  of  all  Germany;  but  it  is,  I  think,  the  doctrine 
that  has  prevailed.  It  is  the  doctrine  of  Bernhardi  —  a 
writer  by  no  means  so  negligible  as  some  critics  have 
tried  to  make  out.  It  is  the  doctrine  of  that  very  remark- 
able German  Secret  Paper  which  appears  as  No.  2  in  the 
French  Yellow  Book.  It  is  the  doctrine  of  the  leading 
German  intellectuals  represented  by  Rohrbach  or  by 
Naumann.  And,  what  is  more  significant,  it  seems  to 
me  to  be  the  doctrine  generally  held  by  pro-Germans  in 
neutral  countries.  Such  pro-Germans  seldom  discuss  the 
negotiations  of  1914  or  the  responsibility  for  the  war. 
They  take  the  bold  line  that  Germany  is  the  finest  nation 
in  the  world,  and  has  a  right,  by  war  or  otherwise,  to 
seize  the  first  place.  They  tacitly  accept  the  doctrine  of 
Harden's  last  half-hour,  except,  of  course,  that  where 
Harden  expected  to  achieve  his  end  by  one  short  and 
triumphant  war,  they  now  with  Dr.  Rohrbach  only  ex- 
pect to  realize  their  full  hopes  "in  this  war,  or  the  next, 
or  the  next,  or  the  next  after  that! " 

Now,  what  is  our  answer,  speaking  —  if  we  can  —  not 
as  indignant  Britishers,  but  as  thinking  men  who  try  to 
be  impartial  —  what  is  our  answer  to  Harden's  claim? 
If  Germany  is  really  so  superior  to  other  nations,  —  and 


116  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

she  can  make  out,  or  could  before  the  war,  a  rather 
plausible  case,  —  ought  we  to  check  her?  Ought  we  to 
strengthen  a  comparatively  backward  power,  like  Rus- 
sia, against  her? 

Surely  our  reply  is  quite  clear.  If  Germany  is  what 
she  claims  to  be,  she  will  get  her  due  place  by  normal 
expansion  and  development.  If  she  is  growing  in  wealth, 
in  population,  in  material,  intellectual,  and  spiritual 
power,  —  no  one  will  say  she  is  hampered  by  undue 
modesty  or  lack  of  advertisement,  —  she  will  inevitably 
gain  the  influence  she  demands;  she  was  already  gaining 
it.  We  do  not  stand  in  her  way  except  as  legitimate 
rivals.  We  have  not  balked  her  colonial  expansion;  we 
agreed  with  her  about  the  Bagdad  Railway.  But  if,  to 
make  her  claim  firmer,  she  insists  on  war;  if  she  seeks  to 
build  her  empire  upon  innocent  blood,  then,  both  as  a 
rival  nation  valuing  our  own  rights  and  as  civilized  men 
in  the  name  of  outraged  humanity,  we  meet  force  with 
force.  We  will  show  this  empire  which  demands  a 
foundation  of  blood  and  iron,  that  blood  at  least  is  a 
slippery  foundation. 

So  much  for  the  first  question  suggested  by  my  text; 
now  for  a  second.  How  does  the  existence  of  this  doc- 
trine and  the  fact  of  its  wide  acceptance  bear  upon  the 
question  of  Peace?  Have  we  blundered  into  this  war, 
through  the  folly  of  our  Governments,  with  no  funda- 
mental quarrel?  or  are  we  confronted  with  a  deliberate 
policy  —  a  policy  backed  by  an  army  of  ten  to  twelve 
millions,  which  we  cannot  tolerate  while  we  exist  as  a 
free  nation?  It  seems  to  me  clear,  and  ever  increasingly 
clear,  that  the  governing  forces  in  Germany  are  fighting 
in  the  spirit  of  Harden 's  speech,  to  create  a  world-power 


HOW  WE  STAND  NOW  117 

which  shall  be,  in  the  first  place,  hostile  to  ourselves, 
and,  in  the  second  place,  based  on  principles  which  we 
regard  as  evil. 

The  ideal  has  been  most  clearly  expressed  in  Nau- 
mann's  remarkable  book  "Mitteleuropa,"  and  in  the 
immense  discussion  to  which  that  book  has  given  rise. 
Some  German  critics  think  that  Naumann  is  too  mod- 
erate in  the  East,  some  that  he  unduly  neglects  the 
colonies.  But  in  general  there  emerges  from  the  whole 
discussion  the  clear  ideal  of  a  united  empire  reaching 
from  Antwerp  to  Bagdad,  dominated,  organized,  perme- 
ated, and  trained  for  war  by  the  German  General  Staff, 
and  developed  economically  by  German  trusts  and 
cartels.  It  is  the  ideal  of  Rohrbach  and  the  Intellectuals 
who  write  in  Deutsche  Politik.  It  is  implicit  in  the  old 
speeches  of  the  Kaiser  and  Prince  von  Bulow.  It  is  im- 
plicit equally  in  the  recent  speech  of  the  present  Chan- 
cellor, insisting  that  "any  possible  peace"  must  be  based 
"on  the  war  situation  as  every  war  map  shows  it  to  be." 

The  war  situation  on  land  already  gives  Germany  her 
empire  of  Mitteleuropa!  Her  armies  reach  now  from 
Antwerp  to  Bagdad,  from  Riga  to  the  frontier  of  Egypt 
—  that  frontier  which  Rohrbach  describes  as  "the 
throat  of  the  British  Empire,"  to  be  held  always  in  Ger- 
many's grip.  The  colonies  are  gone;  true.  But  if  Ger- 
many is  sufficiently  strong  in  Europe,  it  is  a  maxim  of 
German  policy  that  colonies  can  be  recovered. 

A  critic  may  say,  "But  this  implies  annexation;  and 
the  whole  principle  of  annexation  is  being  vigorously  re- 
pudiated in  Germany."  Quite  true.  It  is  being  repu- 
diated; and  not  only  by  the  Socialists,  but  by  many 
bourgeois  politicians  and  professors.  There  has  been  a 
curious  unanimity,  these  last  weeks,  in  the  repudiation 


118  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

of  the  annexation  policy.  What  is  the  explanation  of  a 
phenomenon  which  seems  so  strangely,  so  suspiciously, 
gratifying? 

Remember  Austria  before  the  war!  She  was  willing  to 
guarantee  the  territorial  integrity  of  Serbia.  She  did  not 
wish  to  annex  territory;  no,  she  wanted  a  Vassal  State. 
That  is  the  clue  to  the  problem  why  Rohrbach  and 
Harden  want  no  annexation,  why  even  the  Chancellor  is 
willing  to  consider  a  policy  without  annexations.  Ger- 
many has  no  need  of  annexations  if  she  can  end  this  war 
as  a  conqueror,  alone  and  supreme  against  a  world  in 
arms. 

The  Chancellor  has  explained  that  he  is  content  not 
to  annex  Belgium,  provided  he  can  have  guarantees  that 
Germany  shall  have  her  "  due  influence  in  Belgium.'11  The 
same  "due  influence,"  I  presume,  which  she  now  pos- 
sesses in  Turkey  and  Bulgaria,  neither  of  which  countries 
she  has  annexed.  The  same  "due  influence"  which  she 
will  inevitably  have,  if  peace  is  made  on  the  basis  of  the 
present  military  situation,  in  Greece,  in  Rumania,  in 
Sweden.  And  who  imagines,  after  that,  that  Denmark 
or  Holland  can  hold  out?  Peace  on  the  basis  of  the 
present  military  situation  establishes  at  a  blow  the 
empire  of  Mitteleuropa,  and  presents  the  professional 
German  war-mongers  with  another  successful  war. 

Let  us  here  consider  another  objection.  "  If  Germany 
is  to  gain  this  position  by  mere  prestige,  without  any 
annexation,"  it  may  be  suggested,  "does  she  not  clearly 
deserve  it?  Are  we  not  wrong  to  object  to  it?  "  I  answer, 
No,  she  does  not  deserve  it,  and  we  have  the  right  to 
object.  She  claims  that  prestige  on  the  ground  that  she 
has  won  the  war;  and  that,  we  maintain,  is  a  false  ground, 


HOW  WE  STAND  NOW  119 

because  she  has  not  won  the  war.  We  mean  to  see  whether 
she  can  win.  An  interesting  object  lesson  is  now  being 
worked  out  before  the  eyes  of  the  smaller  nations,  those 
semi-civilized  Balkan  and  Asiatic  communities  who 
have  had  so  little  experience  of  honest  politics  and  such 
abundant  experience  of  international  scoundrelism.  They 
are  waiting  to  see  whether  the  last  word  of  political 
wisdom  is  to  be  found  in  the  way  in  which  Germany 
treated  Belgium,  and  Austria  treated  Serbia,  and  both 
Powers  treated  the  unhappy  Balkan  States  at  the  time 
of  the  last  Balkan  War.  They  are  waiting  to  see  whether 
it  is  safe  and  wise  to  plot  evil,  to  lie,  to  prepare,  to  spring 
upon  your  prey;  or  whether  the  great  mass  of  decent 
human  society  is  in  the  long  run  strong  enough  to 
beat  down  any  nation  that  plays  the  assassin  against  its 
fellows. 

That  is  how  the  knowledge  of  this  policy  bears  on  the 
question  of  Peace.  A  great  Scandinavian  shipbuilder  the 
other  day  told  me  that  he  had  one  word  of  advice,  and 
one  only,  to  give  us  about  the  war.  "  Beat  Germany  this 
time,"  he  said,  "for,  if  you  do  not,  next  time  she  will  beat 
you." 

I  will  ask  you  now  to  face  with  me  a  third  question, 
suggested  not  so  much  by  Harden's  actual  speech  as  by 
the  tone  of  my  own  criticism  of  it.  I  think  Harden's 
programme  wicked;  I  regard  the  political  action  and 
the  whole  manner  of  thought  of  the  German  leaders 
as  both  treacherous  and  cruel;  I  think  and  speak  of  it 
with  indignation,  and  so  do  you.  Now,  have  we  any 
right  to  that  tone? 

I  met  in  France  lately  an  old  friend  of  mine,  who  told 
me  in  a  genial  way  that  all  such  indignation  was  hypoc- 


120  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

risy,  pure  hypocrisy.  "Germany  was  perfectly  right  in 
all  she  had  done,  and  if  we  had  been  clever  enough  to 
think  of  it,  we  would  have  done  the  same.,,  And  he 
challenged  me  with  certain  quotations  from  English  and 
American  writers,  which  I  will  put  before  you  in  a 
moment. 

Now,  we  all  know  that  our  indignation  is  not  hypo- 
critical. Whether  warranted  or  not,  it  is  perfectly  sin- 
cere. There  is  no  question  of  that.  But  I  wish,  before 
answering  my  friend  in  detail,  to  make  one  frank  ad- 
mission. Our  moral  indignation  is  not  hypocritical ;  but  I 
admit  that  it  is  a  dangerous  state  of  mind.  As  soon  as 
we  begin  to  have  that  kind  of  feeling  towards  any  na- 
tional or  personal  enemy,  a  feeling  of  indignant  scorn 
for  some  one  else  coupled  with  a  conviction  of  our  own 
great  superiority,  it  is  dangerous :  we  ought  instantly  to 
collect  ourselves  and  bear  in  mind,  at  the  least,  the  possi- 
bility that,  "but  for  the  grace  of  God,  there  go  we  and 
there  goes  Great  Britain." 

"If  we  had  been  clever  enough,  we  would  have  done 
the  same":  let  us  see  what,  in  this  respect,  Germany 
did.  She  forced  on  Europe  a  war  that  could  have  been 
easily  avoided;  she  broke  her  treaty  in  a  peculiarly 
treacherous  way;  she  trampled  on  international  law;  she 
practised  deliberate  "  frightf ulness  "  on  the  civil  popula- 
tion in  Belgium  and  northern  France;  she  twisted  all  the 
rules  of  war  towards  less  chivalry  and  greater  brutal- 
ity; she  slew  unarmed  civilians  wholesale  with  her  sub- 
marines and  Zeppelins;  and,  if  we  are  adding  up  her  list 
of  crimes,  we  should  not  forget  the  most  widespread  and 
ghastly  of  all,  her  deliberate  starvation  of  Poland  and  her 
complicity  in  the  unspeakable  horrors  of  Armenia. 

Would  we,  could  we,  as  a  nation,  ever  have  done  these 


HOW  WE  STAND  NOW  121 

things?  No  one  who  knows  England  will  really  argue 
that  we  would  actually  have  done  them.  But  let  us  go 
further.  Do  we  habitually  harbour  principles  and  use 
arguments  which  would  justify  our  doing  such  things,  if 
circumstances  tempted  us  that  way!  As  a  nation  I  am 
clear  that  we  do  not ;  but  I  must  face  some  of  my  friend's 
quotations. 

As  for  the  general  theory :  well,  our  late  Field  Marshal, 
Lord  Roberts,  was  a  great  and  chivalrous  soldier,  ad- 
mired and  loved  by  his  fellow  countrymen.  Yet  it  seems 
that  in  his  "Message  to  the  Nation"  he  definitely 
praises  and  recommends  for  our  imitation  the  doctrines 
of  General  Bernhardi,  and  particularly  admires  the 
German  Government  for  pouring  scorn  on  President 
Taft's  proposals  for  arbitration  treaties  (pp.  8,  9).  Well, 
I  confess  I  wish  Lord  Roberts  had  not  written  thus.  My 
defence  must  be  the  rather  speculative  one,  that  I  do 
not  believe  he  really  accepted  the  doctrines  that  he 
seemed  to  preach.  At  any  rate,  you  will  not  find  any- 
where in  his  long  military  life  that  he  practised  them. 

Again,  when  we  speak  of  "  scraps  of  paper,"  I  find 
that  a  certain  English  soldier,  a  member  of  my  own  clan, 
too,  has  expressed  his  opinions  about  them  even  more 
vigorous^  than  Dr.  Bethmann-Hollweg.  He  is  speak- 
ing of  our  seizure  of  the  Danish  Fleet  in  1807.  "  Nothing 
has  ever  been  done  by  any  other  nation  more  utterly  in 
defiance  of  the  conventionalities  of  so-called  interna- 
tional law.  We  considered  it  advisable  and  necessary 
and  expedient,  and  we  had  the  power  to  do  it ;  therefore 
we  did  it.  Are  we  ashamed  of  it?  No,  certainly  not. 
We  are  proud  of  it."  The  writer  is  Major  Stewart- 
Murray  in  "The  Future  Peace  of  the  Anglo-Saxons." 
The  history,  of  course,  is  incorrect,  the  language  is 


122  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

muddled;  but  the  writer's  general  meaning  is  clear 
enough.  And  it  is  certainly  not  for  him  to  throw  stones 
at  professed  treaty-breakers. 

My  friend's  next  quotations  are  from  Mr.  Homer  Lea. 
Now,  I  do  not  feel  myself  responsible  for  Mr.  Homer  Lea, 
because  after  all  he  is  American,  not  English.  But  cer- 
tainly, to  judge  by  the  quotations,  his  principles  would 
warm  the  hearts  of  Attila  or  Admiral  von  Tirpitz.  They 
would  not,  I  think,  have  appealed  to  General  Robert 
Lee,  and  I  am  certain  would  have  horrified  Homer.  Even 
that  most  sinister  sentence  with  which  the  horrors  of 
Belgium  were  justified  —  the  maxim  that  an  invading 
army  should  "  leave  the  women  and  children  nothing  but 
their  eyes  to  weep  with"  —  even  that  was  not  the  in- 
vention of  the  Teuton.  It  was  welcomed  and  carried  into 
practice  by  them;  but  its  invention  belongs  to  an 
American  general  and  it  has  been  quoted  with  admira- 
tion by  certain  English  writers. 

Lastly,  let  us  take  two  statements  of  what  I  may  call 
the  mystical  creed  of  militarism.  I  want  you  to  guess 
which  of  the  two  is  German  and  which  English.  "War 
gives  a  biologically  just  decision,  since  its  decisions  arise 
from  the  very  nature  of  things."  And,  again:  "War  is 
the  divinely  appointed  means  by  which  the  environment 
may  be  readjusted  till  'ethically  fittest'  and  'best'  be- 
come synonymous."  Which  of  those  two  is  German? 
Which  is  the  more  remote  from  good  sense?  which  the 
more  characteristic  in  its  mixture  of  piety  and  muddle- 
headedness?  Well,  I  don't  know  what  your  guesses  are 
but  the  first  is  from  Bernhardi,  and  the  second  from 
Colonel  Maude,  on  "War  and  the  World's  Life." 

In  "Punch"  last  week  there  was  a  cartoon  represent- 
ing a  blundering  Teutonic  giant  with  a  spiked  club,  ad- 


HOW  WE  STAND  NOW  123 

vancing  under  the  motto,  "  WeUmacht  oder  Niedergang ! " 
Naturally,  when  any  person  is  kind  enough  to  give  the 
rest  of  the  world  that  choice,  we  all  unanimously  say, 
"Niedergang,  if  you  please."  Yet  I  find  in  the  book  of  a 
well-known  and  kindly  and  learned  English  writer  the 
statement  that  "a  choice  is  now  given  to  England,  a 
choice  between  the  first  place  among  nations  and  the  last ; 
between  the  leadership  of  the  human  race  and  the  loss  of 
empire  and  of  all  but  the  shadow  of  independence." 

Of  course,  one  sees  more  or  less  what  he  means;  but 
why  exaggerate?  Why  insist  on  "leadership  of  the 
human  race"  ?  Why  express  the  policy  you  advocate  in 
terms  which  must  necessarily  exasperate  Russia,  France, 
the  United  States,  and  all  the  other  great  nations?  Is 
that  the  way  to  get  allies  among  nations  of  whom  each 
one  considers  itself  as  good  as  you?  Is  it  the  spirit  in 
which  to  conduct  decent  diplomacy,  the  spirit  in  which 
to  deal  fairly  and  reasonably  with  the  other  members 
of  the  great  fraternity  of  Europe? 

What,  then,  is  the  answer  to  my  friend's  challenge?  I 
confess  myself  still  unshaken  by  it.  We  must  admit  that 
these  militarists,  these  enthusiastic  spurners  of  inter- 
national law,  these  eloquent  would-be  torturers  of  civil 
populations,  these  rejecters  and  despisers  of  arbitra- 
tion and  peace,  do  exist  among  us;  they  exist  among 
us,  but,  thank  Heaven  and  our  own  common  sense,  they 
do  not  control  our  Government.  They  are  not  England. 
In  Germany,  they  have  controlled  the  Government. 
And  the  world  has  seen  the  fruit  of  their  principles  when 
carried  into  action,  in  all  its  horror  and  all  its  helpless 
futility. 

Plato  always  insisted  —  you  will  excuse  a  Greek 


121  FAITH,  WAR,  AND   POLICY 

scholar  for  once  referring  to  Plato  —  on  the  great  com- 
plexity of  human  character.  It  is  never  One;  it  is  always 
a  mass  of  warring  impulses;  and  his  solution  of  the  prob- 
lem presented  by  that  inward  war  was  to  maintain  the 
character  as  an  "aristocracy,"  in  which  the  best  forces 
should  be  uppermost  and  the  lower  ones  beaten  down. 
The  same  rule  should  apply  both  to  the  individual  and  to 
the  State.  I  believe  that — in  Plato's  sense  of  the  word, 
which  is,  of  course,  quite  different  from  its  ordinary 
modern  meaning  —  we  do  possess  in  Great  Britain  such 
an  " aristocracy."  Our  better  natures  on  the  whole  rule 
our  public  action;  we  give  our  national  confidence  to  our 
better  men.  We  have  behind  us  a  very  great  tradition. 
In  peace  we  are  the  most  liberal  and  the  most  merciful 
of  all  great  empires;  in  war  we  have  Napoleon's  famous 
testimonial,  calling  us  "the  most  consistent,  the  most 
implacable,  and  the  most  generous  of  his  enemies."  It  is 
for  us  to  keep  up  that  tradition,  and  I  believe  that  the 
men  who  rule  us  do  keep  it  up.  The  main  effort  of  the 
nation  is  high  and  noble,  but  in  the  strain  and  anxiety 
of  this  long  war  one  becomes  conscious  of  the  struggle 
towards  expression  of  something  lower,  something  mean, 
angry,  intemperate,  hysterical,  slanderous  —  the  bar- 
barian slaves,  as  Plato  would  put  it,  clamouring  that  the 
city  itself  shall  be  governed  by  barbarian  slaves. 

I  take  one  case,  not  mentioning  names  because  I  do 
not  wish  to  attack  any  individual,  from  the  "Times" 
of  a  few  days  back.  The  children  of  interned  aliens  are 
fed  by  the  Boards  of  Guardians  on  workhouse  principles. 
With  the  rise  of  prices  an  increased  grant  was  necessary, 
and  was  applied  for  by  the  Local  Government  Board. 
(It  remained  considerably  lower  than  the  allowance  for 
the  children  of  our  own  soldiers  and  sailors.)  A  certain 


HOW  WE  STAND  NOW  125 

Member  of  Parliament  asked  Mr.  McKenna  if,  before 
sanctioning  the  grant,  he  would  give  due  consideration 
to  the  increasingly  bad  conditions  under  which  British 
civilians  were  now  forced  to  live  at  Ruhleben. 

Mr.  McKenna:  The  proposals  of  the  Local  Government 
Board  have  already  been  approved.  In  their  treatment  oi 
prisoners  and  other  enemy  aliens  in  this  country,  His  Majesty's 
Government  are  guided  by  the  dictates  of  humanity  and  the 
principles  of  The  Hague  Convention. 

Another  honorable  Member:  Before  the  right  honorable 
gentleman  sanctions  the  increase,  will  he  ascertain  what  grants 
are  being  given  to  the  children  of  interned  British  prisoners  in 
Ruhleben? 

Mr.  McKenna:  I  do  not  think  the  two  cases  can  be  weighed 
one  against  the  other.  No  matter  what  other  Governments 
may  do,  this  Government  will  continue  to  be  actuated  by  the 
principles  of  humanity. 

The  honorable  Member :  How  does  the  right  honorable 
gentleman  expect  to  get  better  treatment  for  British  prisoners 
in  Ruhleben  if  he  gives  everything  with  both  hands  to  the  chil- 
dren of  interned  Germans  here? 

Mr.  McKenna:  I  do  not  think  my  honorable  friend  states  the 
case  quite  fairly.  We  believe  ourselves  bound  by  certain 
principles  —  the  rules  of  The  Hague  Convention.  We  have 
acted  honestly  and  fearlessly  in  conformity  with  those  rules, 
and  I  hope  the  House  will  support  the  Government  in  so  doing. 

I  choosejihis  incident,  not  from  any  wish  to  attack  the 
honorable  Members  involved,  one  of  whom  I  know  to  be 
a  quite  kindly  person,  but  because  it  just  illustrates  my 
argument.  It  shows  a  bad  and  foolish  and  un-English 
impulse  struggling  to  obtain  power  and  being  very  prop- 
erly crushed.  No  reasonable  person  really  imagines  that 
cutting  down  the  food  of  these  children  below  what  the 
Guardians  think  necessary  will  help  us  in  the  faintest 
degree  to  win  the  war;  and,  above  all,  that  is  not  the  way 


12G  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

in  which  Great  Britain  makes  war,  —  or,  please  God, 
ever  will  make  war,  —  by  starving  a  lot  of  little  enemy 
children  whom  we  happen  to  have  in  our  hands. 

I  wonder  sometimes  that  people  —  especially  people 
who  write  letters  to  newspapers  —  seem  to  have  so  little 
pride  in  their  country.  I  suppose  there  is  some  psycho- 
logical luxury  in  making  vindictive  suggestions  of  this 
kind,  or  in  spreading  wild  accusations  against  one's 
leaders.  But  it  is  the  sort  of  luxury  that  ought  to  be 
strictly  cut  down  in  time  of  war.  It  is  misleading  to 
other  nations;  and,  with  public  servants  as  with  others, 
you  do  not  get  the  best  work  by  incessant  scolding.  For 
my  own  part,  I  am  more  proud  of  Great  Britain  than 
ever  in  my  life  before,  and  that  largely  because,  in  spite 
of  this  froth  or  scum  that  sometimes  floats  on  the  surface, 
she  is  fundamentally  true  to  her  great  traditions,  and 
treads  steadily  underfoot  those  elements  which,  if  they 
had  control,  would  depose  us  from  being  a  nation  of 
"  white  men,"  of  rulers,  of  gentlemen,  and  bring  us  to 
the  level  of  the  enemy  whom  we  denounce  or  the  "  lesser 
breeds  without  the  law." 

Probably  many  of  us  have  learned  only  through  this 
war  how  much  we  loved  our  country.  That  love  de- 
pends, of  course,  not  mainly  on  pride,  but  on  old  habit 
and  familiarity,  on  neighbourliness  and  memories  of 
childhood.  Yet,  mingling  with  that  love  for  our  old 
country,  I  do  feel  a  profound  pride.  I  am  proud  of  our 
response  to  the  Empire's  call,  a  response  absolutely  un- 
exampled in  history,  five  million  men  and  more  gathering 
from  the  ends  of  the  earth;  subjects  of  the  British  Em- 
pire coming  to  offer  life  and  limb  for  the  Empire,  not  be- 
cause they  were  subjects,  but  because  they  were  free  and 
willed  to  come.  I  am   proud  of  our  soldiers  and  our 


HOW  WE  STAND  NOW  127 

sailors,  our  invincible  sailors !  I  am  proud  of  the  retreat 
from  Mons,  the  first  and  second  battles  of  Ypres,  the 
storming  of  the  heights  of  Gallipoli.  No  victory  that  the 
future  may  bring  can  ever  obliterate  the  glory  of  those 
days  of  darkness  and  suffering,  no  tomb  in  Westminster 
Abbey  surpass  the  splendour  of  those  violated  and  name- 
less graves. 

I  am  proud  of  our  men  in  the  workshop  and  the  fac- 
tory, proud  of  our  men  and  almost  more  proud  of  our 
women  —  working  one  and  all  day  after  day,  with  con- 
stant overtime  and  practically  no  holidays,  for  the  most 
part  demanding  no  trade  safeguards  and  insisting  on  no 
conditions,  but  giving  freely  to  the  common  cause  all 
that  they  have  to  give. 

I  am  proud  of  our  political  leaders  and  civil  adminis- 
trators, proud  of  their  resource,  their  devotion,  their 
unshaken  coolness,  their  magnanimity  in  the  face  of 
intrigue  and  detraction,  their  magnificent  interpreta- 
tion of  the  nation's  will.  I  do  not  seek  to  palliate  mis- 
takes or  deprecate  criticism,  so  long  as  it  is  honest  and 
helpful  criticism.  But,  when  almost  every  morning  and 
evening  newspapers  professing  to  be  patriotic  pour  in 
their  attacks  on  these  men  who  are  bearing  our  burden, 
—  attacks  which  will  wither  away  and  vanish  with  our 
first  big  victory,  —  I  will  venture  to  state  one  humble 
citizen's  opinion:  that,  whether  you  look  at  the  Head  of 
the  Government  or  whether  you  look  at  the  great  Secre- 
taryships and  Administrative  Offices,  from  the  begin- 
ning of  the  war  till  now,  I  doubt  if  at  any  previous  period 
of  English  history  you  will  find  a  nation  guided  by  such 
a  combination  of  experience,  high  character,  and  com- 
manding intellectual  power. 

A  few  days  ago  I  was  in  France  in  the  fire-zone.  I  had 


128  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

been  at  a  field  dressing-station,  which  had  just  evacuated 
its  wounded  and  dead,  and  was  expecting  more;  and,  as 
evening  was  falling,  full  of  the  uncanny  strain  of  the 
whole  place  and  slightly  deafened  with  the  shells,  I  saw  a 
body  of  men  in  full  kit  plodding  their  way  up  the  com- 
munication trenches  to  take  their  place  in  the  front  line. 
I  I  was  just  going  back  myself,  well  out  of  the  range  of 
guns,  to  a  comfortable  tea  and  a  peaceful  evening;  and 
there,  in  trench  after  trench,  along  all  the  hundred  miles 
of  our  front,  day  after  day,  night  after  night,  were  men 
moving  heavily  up  to  the  firing-line,  to  pay  their  regular 
toll  of  so  many  killed  and  so  many  wounded,  while  the 
war  drags  on  its  weary  length.  I  suddenly  wondered  in 
my  heart  whether  we  or  our  cause  or  our  country  is 
worth  that  sacrifice;  and,  with  my  mind  full  of  its  awful- 
ness,  I  answered  clearly,  Yes.  Because,  while  I  am  proud 
of  all  the  things  I  have  mentioned  about  Great  Britain, 
I  am  most  proud  of  the  clean  hands  with  which  we  came 
into  this  contest,  proud  of  the  Cause  for  which  with  clear 
vision  we  unsheathed  our  sword,  and  which  we  mean  to 
maintain  unshaken  to  the  bitter  or  the  triumphant  end. 


VIII 

IRELAND 

I.  The  Dublin  Insurrection 

(June,  1916) 

I  write  of  this  question  as  an  English  Liberal  whose 
father  was  an  Irish  Catholic  and  a  friend  of  Daniel 
O'Connell.  I  have  all  my  life  been  a  devoted  Home 
Ruler,  a  follower  of  Mr.  Gladstone,  Mr.  Asquith,  and 
Mr.  Redmond.  All  these  leaders  are  loyal  Britishers, 
and  believe  that  Home  Rule  is  good  both  for  Ireland  and 
for  the  whole  British  Empire. 

What  was  the  cause  of  the  Dublin  insurrection  of 
April  last?  The  delay  of  Home  Rule,  causing  widespread 
disappointment  and  mistrust;  the  bad  example  of  the 
Ulster  Party  before  the  war,  with  their  importation  of 
arms  from  Germany  and  their  open  threats  of  civil  war 
if  Home  Rule  was  passed;  and  lastly,  the  constant  sedi- 
tious propaganda  of  the  avowed  enemies  of  England, 
whether  old  Fenians  and  "physical  force  men"  or  paid 
tools  of  the  Germans. 

Why  was  Home  Rule  delayed?  Because  it  was  so  dif- 
ficult to  carry.  The  Liberals  proposed  the  first  Home 
Rule  Bill  in  1886,  and  were  thrown  out  of  office  upon  it. 
They  got  it  through  the  House  of  Commons  in  1892,  and 
were  defeated  in  the  Lords.  After  a  long  period  of  defeat 
they  carried  it  three  times  through  the  House  of  Com- 
mons between  1910  and  1914,  and  meantime  passed  the 


130  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

"Parliament  Act,"  overriding  the  veto  of  the  House 
of  Lords.  So  at  last  in  1914  Home  Rule  was  ready  to 
come  into  law.  Then  came  the  last  ditch,  the  armed  op- 
position of  almost  all  the  Protestants  of  the  Northeast 
corner  of  Ireland.  These  Ulstermen,  led  by  Sir  Edward 
Carson,  refused  to  accept  any  compromise  or  amend- 
ment, but  merely  declared  that  they  would  not  accept 
Home  Rule,  and,  if  it  were  passed,  would  declare  a  civil 
war.  They  proceeded  to  drill  and  to  import  arms  from 
Germany. 

What  was  Mr.  Asquith,  then  Prime  Minister  and 
leader  of  the  Liberal  Party,  to  do?  His  object  was  to 
pacify  Ireland;  and  it  appeared  that  four  fifths  of  Ire- 
land threatened  permanent  disaffection  if  Home  Rule 
was  not  granted,  while  one  fifth  threatened  instant  civil 
war  if  it  was  granted.  With  immense  patience  and  pub- 
lic spirit  he  tried  to  bring  both  parties  to  accept  some 
compromise,  but  did  not  succeed  until  the  war  with 
Germany  broke  out.  Then,  under  the  stress  of  a  com- 
mon and  terrific  danger,  both  sides  accepted  a  com- 
promise. The  Home  Rule  Bill  was  passed  into  law,  but 
it  was  not  to  come  into  operation  till  after  the  war;  and 
before  it  came  into  operation  an  amending  bill  was  to  be 
passed  which  should  enable  Ulster  to  stay  outside  the 
bill.   Home  Rule  was  thus  again  postponed. 

Next  came  the  Coalition.  Mr.  Asquith  thought  the 
country  would  be  more  united  in  the  work  of  the 
war  if  all  parties  joined  in  the  Government.  The  new 
Government  was  composed  of  Liberals,  Tories,  and  La- 
bour men  in  proportion  to  their  numbers  in  the  House. 
Among  the  Tories  in  the  new  Government  was  Sir  Ed- 
ward Carson,  who  had  declared  that  he  would  lead  a 
civil  war  rather  than  accept  Home  Rule.  The  Irish  Na- 


IRELAND  131 

tionalists  began  to  lose  faith;  it  looked  as  if  they  would 
never  get  Home  Rule  at  all.  True,  Carson  very  soon 
left  the  Government,  but  all  the  Tories  had  been  pledged 
against  Home  Rule;  and  though  they  declared,  quite 
honestly,  that  they  would  abide  by  the  compromise  of 
1914,  it  was  easy  for  mischief-makers  in  Ireland  to  sow 
mistrust.  These  misGhief-makers,  partly  in  German 
pay,  partly  disaffected  fanatics,  kept  up  an  underground 
propaganda,  saying  that  England  would  break  all  her 
promises,  that  the  English  Liberals  were  frauds,  that 
the  Irish  Nationalists  under  Redmond  were  a  stale  old 
crew  of  politicians,  run  by  "the  priest,  the  publican,  the 
'gombeen-man/  and  the  English  M.P."  Thus,  all  was 
ready  for  treason,  and  treason  came  in  a  very  abrupt  and 
bloody  form. 

There  are  three  main  parties  in  Ireland:  (1)  The 
Constitutional  Nationalists,  under  Redmond,  loyal  to 
the  British  connection,  but  determined  above  all  things 
to  win  Home  Rule  by  Parliamentary  and  legal  meth- 
ods. They  generally  work  with  the  English  Liberals. 
(2)  The  Ulster  Protestants  led  by  Carson,  including  the 
Orangemen  and  the  few  Protestants  in  the  other  parts 
of  Ireland,  professing  extreme  loyalty  and  refusing  to  be 
in  any  way  separated  from  Great  Britain,  but  ready  to 
fight  against  Great  Britain  rather  than  be  made  part 
of  a  Home  Rule  Ireland.  They  are  supported  by  most 
of  the  English  Conservatives.  (3)  Conspirators  and 
avowed  enemies  of  England,  including  some  Sinn  Fein- 
ers,  some  old  Fenians,  and  some  revolutionaries,  who 
were  intriguing  to  help  the  Germans  or  any  one  else 
who  would  injure  the  British  Empire. 

Now,  it  is  obvious  that  ordinary  loyal  Britishers  can 
have  no  dealings  with  this  third  class,  least  of  all  at  a 


132  FAITH,  WAR,  AND   POLICY 

time  when  we  are  fighting  for  our  lives,  and  thousands  of 
loyal  Irishmen,  both  Catholic  and  Protestant,  are  giving 
their  lives  for  us  in  the  trenches.  And  further  it  is  obvi- 
ous that,  whenever  the  constitutional  demand  for  Home 
Rule  seems  to  fail  and  the  Irish  begin  to  lose  hope,  this 
third  party  of  treason  and  violence  will  be  strengthened. 
It  is  to  this  third  party  that  Casement  and  the  Dublin 
rebels  belonged. 

Roger  Casement  had  been  in  the  British  consular  serv- 
ice all  his  life.  He  had  done  good  work,  received  pro- 
motion, been  treated  with  confidence,  been  awarded  a 
knighthood,  and  had  written  a  letter  of  almost  excessive 
gratitude  for  it  to  the  Government.  Just  before  the  out- 
break of  the  war  he  got  away  from  England,  crossed  to 
Germany,  and  gave  the  Germans  all  the  information  he 
was  able  to  give  to  help  them  in  destroying  us.  In  partic- 
ular he  was  employed  to  seduce  from  their  allegiance  all 
Irish  soldiers  who  were  prisoners  in  Germany.  These 
poor  fellows  were  promised  immediate  freedom  and  high 
pay  if  they  would  join  the  Germans  and  help  to  invade 
Ireland ;  they  were  fed  with  the  most  detailed  and  infa- 
mous lies  against  England ;  if  they  accepted  Casement's 
proposals  their  food  allowance  was  increased;  if  they 
refused  his  proposals,  they  were  starved.  To  their  in- 
finite credit  it  must  be  said  that  only  some  forty  or  fifty 
men  out  of  several  thousands  gave  way.  On  the  con- 
trary, Casement  was  more  than  once  hooted  out  of  the 
camps  and  had  on  occasion  to  be  protected  from  the  in- 
dignant prisoners  by  a  German  sergeant.  On  one  oc- 
casion, one  of  his  associates  offered,  for  a  payment  of 
five  thousand  pounds,  to  betray  Casement  to  the  British 
Government.  The  offer  was,  of  course,  accepted.  What- 
ever one  may  think  of  the  man  who  offers  to  betray  his 


IRELAND  133 

associates,  no  Government  in  the  world  would  refuse 
such  an  offer  if  it  was  made  to  them.  The  man,  however, 
did  not  carry  out  his  plan. 

At  last  all  was  ready.  On  April  20,  Casement  was 
landed  on  the  west  coast  of  Ireland  from  a  German 
cruiser,  laden  with  arms.  The  cruiser  was  caught  by 
British  destroyers  and  sank  itself  to  conceal  something 
that  it  contained;  the  crew  was  saved.  Next  day  Case- 
ment was  arrested  near  the  shore  with  a  companion, 
heavily  armed  and  giving  a  false  name.  On  the  24th  a 
bloody  little  rebellion  broke  out  in  Dublin.  All  police 
and  soldiers  —  even  wounded  soldiers  from  the  hospitals 
—  were  shot  down  at  sight,  and  a  great  number  of  peace- 
ful citizens  killed  or  wounded.  The  dead  amounted  to 
some  hundreds.  At  the  same  time  a  German  squadron 
attempted  a  raid  on  the  east  coast  of  England,  but  was 
routed  by  the  local  destroyers  and  small  craft.  There 
was  an  unsuccessful  rising  at  Enniscorthy  which  was  put 
down  by  the  spontaneous  action  of  the  Irish  Nationalist 
Volunteers.  There  were  attempts  at  risings  in  other  parts 
of  Ireland  and  attempts  against  the  railways  in  England. 
It  was  not  till  May  1  that  the  whole  rebel  force  surren- 
dered unconditionally.  During  a  whole  week  Dublin  had 
lived  under  a  reign  of  terror.  For  the  rising,  though  con- 
taining a  number  of  leading  Sinn  Feiners  and  sentimental 
Irish  enthusiasts,  was  chiefly  carried  out  by  wild  Labour 
men,  who  had  been  disowned  by  the  trade-unions,  and 
by  actual  criminals.  These  men  used  explosive  bullets 
and  committed  some  acts  of  great  cruelty. 

The  German  raid  was  defeated,  Casement  arrested, 
the  rebels  in  Ireland  put  down.  What  was  to  be  done 
next?  Two  answers  were  possible.  "Punish  the  rebels," 
said  the   Ulstermen   and   the  English  Conservatives; 


134  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

"annul  the  Heme  Rule  Bill;  send  forty  thousand  troops 
to  Ireland,  and  uphold  the  law.  Let  there  be  an  end  of 
paltering  with  treason."  "Grant  Home  Rule  at  once," 
said  the  Nationalists  and  the  English  Liberals;  "re- 
move all  possible  excuses  for  mistrust.  And  —  guilty  as 
they  are  —  give  pardon  to  all  the  rebels  you  possibly 
can."  What  was  Mr.  Asquith  to  do?  His  whole  object 
was  to  pacify  Ireland,  and  that  could  be  done  only  by 
finding  a  course  to  which  both  parties  would,  however 
reluctantly,  agree.  The  course  ultimately  approved  was 
(1)  to  punish  a  small  number  of  the  rebels,  who  had  per- 
sonally been  most  deeply  engaged  in  the  bloodshed,  and 
so  maintain  the  rule  of  the  law.  Sixteen  men  were  thus 
put  to  death.  (2)  To  satisfy  the  national  demand  of 
four  fifths  of  Ireland  by  putting  Home  Rule  into  force 
at  once.  All  "loyalist"  or  Protestant  Ireland  had  been 
roused  to  fury  by  the  Dublin  insurrection,  and  it  was 
almost  impossible  to  win  their  consent  to  this  grant  of 
Home  Rule.  It  was  hard  also  k>  persuade  the  Nation- 
alists to  make  any  concessions.  However,  Mr.  Lloyd 
George  was  set  to  the  work  of  persuading  both  parties 
m  Ireland  to  agree  to  some  settlement.  If  the  rebels 
had  not  been  punished  Ulster  would  not  have  listened 
to  him. 

At  last  Lloyd  George  induced  the  Ulstermen  to  agree 
to  Home  Rule  for  the  rest  of  Ireland  on  condition  that 
Ulster  should  not  be  forced  into  the  scheme  without  her 
consent,  and  the  Nationalists  to  agree  to  the  exclusion 
of  Ulster  provided  the  whole  arrangement  should  be 
reconsidered  by  an  imperial  conference  after  the  war. 
This  was  the  basis  of  a  compromise  which  had  then  to 
be  laid  before  the  Cabinet,  and  which  unfortunately  came 
out  of  the  Cabinet  in  a  slightly  different  form  from  that 


IRELAND  135 

with  which  it  went  in.  A  fierce  dispute  is  now  raging 
about  the  changes  in  the  scheme;  but  they  seem  to  me 
to  be  only  points  of  detail  and  easily  capable  of  arrange- 
ment by  sensible  men.  The  main  point  that  remains  is 
the  question  of  Casement's  fate. 

He  was  tried  for  high  treason  in  London  in  June.  He 
had  a  fair  and  even  a  generous  trial.  His  advocate,  Mr. 
Sullivan,  was  allowed  unusual  latitude.  A  special  ar- 
rangement was  made  to  allow  a  distinguished  American 
lawyer  to  come  and  take  part  in  the  defence.  But  of 
course  there  was  no  real  defence  possible.  If  ever  there 
was  a  clear  case  of  high  treason,  it  was  this,  nor  can  one 
discover  any  extenuating  circumstances  except  possibly 
the  prisoner's  previous  services  to  the  country  he  had 
now  betrayed.  If  you  take  the  ground  of  open  hostility 
to  England,  and  argue  that  any  act  of  rebellion  by  an 
Irishman  is  meritorious  in  itself,  you  can  excuse  Case- 
ment. But  that  is  not  a  ground  that  any  English  tribunal, 
or  any  impartial  tribunal,  can  be  expected  to  take.  On 
grounds  of  justice  there  is  no  doubt  whatever  of  Case- 
ment's guilt,  and  no  reason  why  he  should  not  be  put  to 
death,  like  any  other  traitor. 

It  is  entirely  a  question  of  policy;  entirely  a  question 
of  what  will  be  the  effect  on  Ireland.  The  Conservatives 
argue  —  with  much  justice  —  that  the  law  has  too  long 
been  despised  and  disobeyed  in  Ireland.  The  Govern- 
ment must  assert  the  law,  and  show  they  are  not  afraid. 
Above  all,  they  must  not  pardon  the  most  guilty  of  all 
the  rebels  after  executing  many  of  his  dupes,  just  be- 
cause he  is  a  man  of  some  wealth  and  position  with  a 
title  and  a  gallant  past.  The  Liberals  tend  to  retort  that 
an  execution  goes  badly  with  an  attempt  at  pacifica- 
tion. Too  much  blood  has  already  been  shed  in  Ireland, 


136  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

especially  by  the  rebels  themselves.  An  act  of  mercy 
does  little  harm  in  any  case,  and  Casement  is  less  danger- 
ous living  and  pardoned  than  dead  and  transformed  into 
a  martyr. 

For  my  part,  I  leave  the  question  to  Mr.  Asquith. 
Mr.  Asquith  has  no  vindictiveness  in  him  and  is  never 
swayed  by  passion.  I  know  he  will  think  of  nothing  but 
the  granting  of  Home  Rule,  the  pacification  of  Ire- 
land, and  the  reconciliation  of  the  two  warring  parties. 
Compared  with  those  aims  I  care  very  little  whether 
Casement  lives  or  dies;  and,  to  do  him  justice,  amid  all 
his  treachery,  I  believe  that  he  himself  cares  as  little. 


II.  The  Execution  of  Casement 

(August  3,  1916) 

I  wrote  the  foregoing  words  in  New  York  in  July, 
while  Casement's  fate  was  still  in  the  balance.  About 
a  week  later  he  was  hanged.  The  royal  prerogative  of 
pardon  was  not  exercised.  For  my  own  part,  not  having 
attended  the  Cabinet  council  at  which  the  final  decision 
was  reached,  I  cannot  tell  how  I  should  have  voted  had 
I  been  there  and  heard  the  arguments;  but  I  freely  admit 
that  I  should  have  gone  to  the  discussion  with  the  inten- 
tion of  voting  for  a  pardon. 

On  what  ground?  It  is  somewhat  hard  to  say.  Cer- 
tainly not  on  any  ground  of  justice.  There  never  was  a 
clearer  case  nor  a  fairer  trial.  Nor  yet  from  that  fine,  if 
somewhat  unreasoning,  sense  of  decency  and  chivalry 
which  makes  the  British  Government  spare  the  Countess 
Markievitch  and  steadily  refuse  to  execute  female  spies. 
Not  from  the  sort  of  personal  pity  which  made  Lord 


IRELAND  137 

Grey  intervene  on  behalf  of  the  American  boy  who  was 
caught  acting  as  a  German  spy  in  England,  and  sent  him 
home  to  his  parents.  Not  from  that  admiration  for  a 
stout  fighter  and  a  brave  enemy  which  made  Captain 
Muller  of  the  Emden  rather  a  hero  in  England,  and  which 
has  twice  saved  De  Wet.  Not  because  Casement  was  an 
ignorant  man  seduced  into  evil  courses,  on  which  ground 
the  court  acquitted  his  fellow  prisoner,  Bailey.  Neither 
could  one  plead  for  Casement's  pardon  on  the  ground 
that  he  was  deranged  in  mind  like  that  other  unhappy 
Irishman,  Lieutenant  Coulthurst,  who  shot  Mr.  Sheehy- 
Skeffington  and  two  other  prisoners  because  a  voice 
from  Heaven  so  directed  him,  and  who  is  now  among  the 
criminal  lunatics  at  Broadmoor.  Alienists  were  sent  to 
examine  Casement,  but  none  could  find  any  insanity  in 
him.  Least  of  all  would  I  seek  to  pardon  him  because 
there  were  press  campaigns  on  his  behalf  in  neutral  coun- 
tries. I  should  be  sorry  to  seem  in  any  way  discourteous 
to  my  journalist  friends  on  either  side  of  the  Atlantic, 
but  I  do  think  it  would  be  a  bad  day  for  justice  if  legal 
sentences  were  to  be  reversed  in  America  to  please  Eng- 
lish newspapers,  or  in  England  to  please  American.  It 
is  certainly  not  the  Irishman  in  me  that  would  have 
pressed  for  his  pardon.  I  regard  Casement  as  one  of  the 
worst  and  most  cruelly  reckless  enemies  that  Ireland 
has  had  for  the  last  fifty  years,  and  I  believe  that  most 
Nationalists  agree  with  me.  As  the  son  of  an  Irishman 
and  a  lifelong  Home  Ruler,  I  boil  with  indignation  when 
I  think  how  Casement's  crazy  treason  has  deluged  Dub- 
lin with  unforgettable  blood  and  perhaps  ruined  for- 
ever a  cause  that  was  almost  won. 

I  should  have  voted  for  pardoning  him  because,  with 
the  part  of  me  that  is  English  and  Liberal,  I  feel  still  a 


13S  FAITH,  WAR,  AND   POLICY 

sense  of  ancient  hereditary  guilt  towards  Ireland,  and 
have  an  instinctive  desire  to  seize  every  possible  oppor- 
tunity for  magnanimity  towards  Irish  rebels.  In  general 
we  British  are  good  governors  and  even  popular,  so  far 
as  governors  are  ever  popular.  A  vast  experience  has 
eventually  taught  us  our  lesson.  But  we  went  to  Ireland 
before  we,  or  any  other  Power,  had  learned  either  to 
govern  or  to  assimilate  dependencies  oversea;  we  made 
all  the  usual  mistakes,  committed  the  usual  crimes,  and 
have  left  a  state  of  permanently  inflamed  feeling  which 
it  will  take  many  generations  of  wisdom  and  sympathy 
to  live  down.  And  every  drop  of  Irish  blood  spilt  by 
English  law,  however  justly,  seems  to  rouse  the  sleeping 
furies  of  all  the  Irishmen  unjustly  slain  by  England  since 
the  days  of  Elizabeth  and  Cromwell. 

On  this  ground  I  should  have  voted  for  pardoning 
Casement. 

With  these  thoughts  in  my  mind  I  happened  to  read 
an  article  in  the  "New  York  Times"  on  Sunday,  Au- 
gust 13,  by  an  Irishman  whom  I  regard  with  every  respect 
and  sympathy,  Mr.  John  Quinn.  Part  of  it  is  an  impas- 
sioned defence  and  eulogy  of  an  old  friend  to  whom  Mr. 
Quinn,  in  spite  of  a  recent  breach,  remained  deeply  at- 
tached. On  all  that  part  of  the  article  I  have  nothing  to 
say.  Casement's  character  is  to  me  an  enigma.  The 
evidence  —  even  the  pre-war  evidence  —  about  it  is 
violently  conflicting;  but  it  is  greatly  in  his  favour  that 
many  of  his  oldest  associates,  who  ought  to  know  him, 
feel  towards  him  as  generously  as  Mr.  Quinn  does.  But 
other  parts  of  Mr.  Quinn's  statement  seem  to  me  to 
illustrate  what  I  said  above:  a  drop  of  Irish  blood  spilt 
by  Englishmen  rouses  all  the  furies  of  the  past. 

Mr.  Quinn's  reason  is  pro-Ally,  and  I  think  I  may  even 


IRELAND  139 

say  pro-British.  The  last  paragraph  of  his  article  is  an 
eloquent  appeal  on  behalf  of  the  Allied  cause.  But  the 
tragic  end  of  Casement  has  roused  in  him  just  that  an- 
cient, and,  if  I  may  say  so,  unreasoning,  bitterness  to- 
wards England  which  otherwise  had  fallen  asleep. 

What  are  the  reasons  he  urges  to  show  that  Casement 
should  have  been  spared?  I  do  not  wish  to  speak  slight- 
ingly of  them,  but  really  they  form  a  curious  collection. 
And  as  you  study  them  you  see  that  they  are  none  of 
them  reasons  connected  with  justice  or  even  with  that 
reasoned  mercy  which  normally  influences  the  Crown  in 
its  prerogative  of  pardon.  They  are  at  worst  based  on 
the  hypothesis  that  any  act  committed  by  an  Irishman 
is  pardonable  so  long  as  he  commits  it  from  hatred  of 
Bngland;  at  best  they  are  the  sort  of  arguments  that 
are,  sometimes,  in  bad  cases,  submitted  to  a  French  jury 
in  defence  of  a  crime  passionne. 

Casement  did  commit  high  treason  against  Great 
Britain.  But  then  "he  regarded  the  British  Govern- 
ment as  his  country's  permanent  and  irreconcilable 
enemy."  He  did  not  love  Germany.  "No  single  action 
of  mine,"  he  wrote,  "has  been  an  act  for  Germany  " ;  only 
Germany  happened  to  serve  his  hatred  of  England! 
He  acted  from  pure  hatred.  Is  that  any  special  reason 
for  not  letting  the  law  take  its  course?  Similarly,  when 
he  tried  to  seduce  the  Irish  captives  in  Germany  from 
their  allegiance,  and  was  rejected  and  scorned  by  the 
enormous  majority  of  them,  "it  is  an  abominable  false- 
hood" to  say  that  Casement  got  the  recalcitrant  pris- 
oners' rations  reduced,  or,  I  suppose,  got  certain  in- 
dividuals among  them  shot.  Casement  was  perfectly 
innocent !  He  merely  walked  away,  protected  by  a  Ger- 
man sergeant,  and  it  was  the  Germans  who  starved  or 


140  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

shot  the  disobedient  prisoners!  Not  a  very  satisfying 
defence,  I  think.  And  it  seems  regrettable  that  two  of 
these  starved  Irish  prisoners,  who  were  afterwards  ex- 
changed as  incurable,  continued  to  believe  this  "abom- 
inable falsehood,"  and  sent  a  message  to  the  Prime  Min- 
ister that  they  regarded  Casement  as  their  murderer. 

Again,  Mr.  Quinn  quotes  some  edifying  sentences  in 
which  Casement  explains  that  "  loyalty  rests  on  love," 
and  that  government  should  be  based  on  love,  not  on 
restraint.  Such  sentiments  are  almost  common  form 
nowadays  among  the  worst  stirrers-up  of  fraud  and 
hatred!  There  is  hardly  a  Nationalist  in  Ireland  who 
will  not  smile  bitterly  at  this  praise  of  "love"  from  one 
who  set  himself  savagely  to  prevent  the  growth,  not 
only  of  love,  but  even  of  decent  peace  and  good  feel- 
ing between  Irish  and  English.  I  wonder  if  the  Irish 
prisoners  in  Germany  thought  of  him  as  an  apostle  of 
love? 

The  legality  and  the  fairness  of  Casement's  trial  are 
admitted  —  except  apparently  that  even  justice  is  un- 
just if  it  comes  from  Englishmen  —  and  Casement  him- 
self did  not  really  deny  his  treason.  Yet  Mr.  Quinn 
repeats  some  half-hearted  suggestions  made  by  the  pris- 
oner's counsel.  He  admits  that  Casement  did  seduce 
prisoners  in  Germany,  with  German  help,  from  their 
allegiance,  and  formed  them  into  an  Irish  brigade  which 
was  inspected  and  approved  by  German  authorities. 
But  his  intentions,  it  is  pleaded,  were  quite  harmless: 
"he  never  intended  them  to  help  Germany"!  Mr. 
Quinn  is  a  lawyer;  does  he  know  many  juries  who  would 
accept  that  statement? 

Lastly,  "in  Casement's  insurrection  not  a  drop  of 
blood  was  shed."   This  is  really  a  little  brazen.   Case- 


IRELAND  141 

ment  landed  from  a  German  submarine  on  April  20, 
intending  to  stir  up  a  rebellion  in  the  West;  the  rebellion 
broke  out  in  Dublin  on  the  24th;  at  the  same  time  the 
German  fleet  made  an  unsuccessful  raid  on  the  east 
coast,  and  attempts  were  discovered  to  cut  the  English 
railway  lines.1  And  we  are  asked  to  believe  that  all 
these  events  had  nothing  to  do  with  one  another  and 
that  Casement  has  no  responsibility  for  the  three  hun- 
dred men  and  women  killed  and  more  than  a  thousand 
wounded  in  Dublin ! 

No.  I  would  myself  have  been  disposed  to  pardon 
Casement,  but  I  oannot  see  the  ghost  of  a  doubt  about 
his  guilt,  nor  yet  about  the  fairness  of  his  trial.  I  cannot 
see  any  extenuating  circumstances  in  the  case  of  Case- 
ment, beyond  those  that  can  be  pleaded  for  all  political 
criminals  from  Guy  Fawkes  to  Booth.  My  only  reason 
would  be  that  reluctance  ever,  if  one  can  possibly  help 
it,  to  put  any  Irishman  to  death  for  offences  against 
England,  that  anxiety  to  atone  for  the  harshness  of  the 
past  by  extreme  tenderness  in  the  present,  which  moves 
most  liberal  Englishmen  in  their  feeling  towards  Ireland. 
I  accept  Mr.  Quinn's  parallels  from  Germany  and  Aus- 
tria. I  do  not  for  a  moment  think  that  the  English  Gov- 
ernment of  Ireland  for  the  last  century  has  been  at  all 
like  that  of  Germany  among  her  Poles  or  of  Austria 
among  her  Slavs.  But  a  century  earlier  it  was  so,  and  I 
accept  the  parallel.  I  do  not  in  the  least  blame  the  Aus- 
trian Government  for  executing  the  assassins  of  the 
Archduke,  provided  she  gave  them  a  fair  trial  first,  and 
only  punished  those  really  guilty.  The  most  I  should 
dream  of  asking  from  that  Austrian  tribunal  would  be 
a  certain  leniency  to  the  very  young  or  misguided,  and 

1  I  myself  was  one  of  a  party  called  out  to  guard  the  Great  Western. 


142  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

extreme  care  in  every  case  where  there  was  a  shadow  of 
doubt. 

"But  at  least,"  Mr.  Quinn  may  retort,  "you  would 
have  admired  or  praised  the  criminals,  who  were  rightly 
striving  to  be  free?"  Not  exactly.  I  would  judge  them 
far  less  harshly  than  ordinary  private  murderers,  just  as 
I  do  Casement ;  because,  however  wrongly,  they  thought 
they  were  working  for  their  country  and  had  suffered 
gross  oppression.  The  rest  would  depend  on  a  multitude 
of  questions.  How  far  were  they  disinterested ;  how  much 
were  they  really  oppressed;  how  brave  or  cruel,  devoted 
or  treacherous,  was  their  action ;  what  reasonable  chance 
was  there  of  its  leading  to  any  good  result?  I  will,  and 
do,  weigh  all  those  questions  on  behalf  of  Sir  Roger  Case- 
ment. I  am  sure  he  was  brave  and  in  a  sense  disinter- 
ested; but  I  do  not  think  he  was  at  all  seriously  "op- 
pressed," 1  I  do  not  think  his  plot  had  any  reasonable 
chance  of  doing  good,  and  I  cannot  acquit  him  of  some 
cruelty  and  treachery. 

Mr.  Quinn  foretells  that  he  will  be  a  popular  hero  in 
Ireland,  his  faults  forgotten,  his  virtues  and  good  looks 
idealized.  That  is  very  likely,  indeed.  It  would  remain 
likely  if  Casement  had  been  the  greatest  scoundrel  in 
Christendom,  and  all  that  his  enemies  said  of  him  were 
proved  true.  Mr.  Quinn  knows  enough  history  to  realize 
the  freakishness  of  popular  fame  in  these  matters.  One 
cannot  acquit  or  pardon  a  guilty  man  because  he  would 
make  a  good  hero  for  a  novel. 

1  The  act  of  oppression  about  which  he  seems  to  have  felt  most 
bitterly  was  the  decision  that  the  Atlantic  mail  steamers  should  cease 
to  call  at  Queenstown.  I  do  not  know  the  merits  of  this  question,  nor 
whether  the  initiative  came  from  the  steamship  companies,  or  the  Gov- 
ernment. But  it  is  not  the  sort  of  "oppression "  that  can  be  wiped  out 
only  by  blood. 


IRELAND  143 

No.  I  can  find  no  ground  for  pardon,  except  that  one 
ground  which  I  have  mentioned.  I  even  doubt  whether, 
if  the  Government  had  spared  Casement  on  the  mere 
cynical  ground  of  trying  to  please  Irish  opinion,  they 
would  have  got  the  price  of  their  weakness.  Our  op- 
ponents were  ready  for  either  event.  Since  he  is  hanged, 
he  is  to  be  a  stainless  martyr;  had  he  been  spared,  he 
would  have  been  an  English  spy,  who  had  got  up  the 
rising  to  give  the  English  a  chance  of  massacring  Irish- 
men. At  the  best,  he  would  have  been  let  off  because 
of  his  social  position  and  his  Protestantism.  I  heard  the 
subject  discussed  myself,  and  know  that  these  lines  were 
to  be  taken. 

But  what  of  American  opinion?  American  opinion, 
on  the  whole  pro-Ally  and  not  by  any  means  anti-Brit- 
ish, would  certainly  have  welcomed  Casement's  pardon. 
Yes,  and  so  should  I.  But  I  think  that  American  opin- 
ion in  these  grave  matters  suffers  from  one  very  serious 
weakness.  To  us  the  war  is  a  reality;  to  neutrals  it  is 
largely  a  spectacle.  To  American  onlookers  an  Irish 
rising  is  a  romantic  episode;  to  us,  in  our  long  death- 
grapple,  it  is  a  cruel  stab  in  the  back,  all  the  more  cruel 
because  it  was  provoked  by  no  oppression,  only  by  our 
supposed  dangers ;  because  it  was  stirred  up  by  deliber- 
ate hatred  after  Home  Rule  was  already  passed  and  on 
the  statute  book;  because  the  man  who  meant  to  lead  it 
was  one  whom  we  had  taken  into  our  political  counsels, 
trusted  and  treated  with  honour. 

Our  business  is  a  very  serious  one;  we  have  to  do  the 
right  thing,  the  wise  thing,  not  the  thing  that  will  be 
most  applauded  in  the  gallery.  American  opinion  is  gen- 
erous, generally  disinterested,  rather  romantic.  Its  gal- 
lery is  well  situated,  but  rather  distant  from  the  real 


144  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

stage.  It  likes  fine  gestures  and  brilliant  stunts.  It  likes 
to  see  the  little  chap  hit  the  big  one,  and  tends  to  boo 
the  big  one  if  he  hits  back.  It  only  makes  matters  worse 
if  the  big  chap  had  beforehand  the  name  of  being  a  gen- 
erous sort  of  fellow ;  the  gallery  will  boo  him  whenever  he 
does  not  fully  live  up  to  his  name.  His  enemies,  fortu- 
nately for  them,  have  no  reputation  left.  They  need  not 
live  up  to  anything. 

After  all,  the  big  chap  has  got  to  use  his  full  strength 
and  means  to  do  so.  He  has  big  enemies  as  well  as  little 
ones.  And,  big  as  he  is,  he  has  no  such  vast  store  of  super- 
fluous muscle.  Blame  him  by  all  means  if  he  cheats  or 
bullies;  but  it  is  hard  to  blame  him  very  much  because 
in  a  great  danger  he  does  not  always  spare  his  enemies. 


III.  The  Future  of  Ireland 
(March  18,  1917) 

So  all  is  well  as  regards  Ireland?  I  am  content,  am 
I?  with  the  record  of  British  statesmanship  in  that  is- 
land? 

No.  I  consider  the  state  of  Ireland  utterly  disastrous, 
a  disgrace  to  British  statesmanship,  a  mockery  to  our 
high  professions,  and  an  extreme  peril  to  the  Empire. 

All  that  I  assert  strongly  in  our  defence  is  that  the 
Irish  Question  is  not  a  question  between  two  nations; 
it  is  an  internal  question.  It  is  not  the  case  that  Eng- 
land is  refusing  self-government  to  Ireland.  Almost  all 
England,  converted  slowly  and  by  bitter  experience  to 
the  old  Liberal  policy,  would  give  Ireland  self-govern- 
ment to-morrow  and  be  thankful.  The  trouble  is  that 
the  strongest  and  most  prosperous  corner  of  Ireland  still 


IRELAND  145 

threatens  civil  war  if  Irish  self-government  is  granted, 
while  all  the  rest  of  Ireland  is  seething  with  disaffection 
because  it  is  not  granted. 

The  situation  is  not  in  the  least  like  that  between  Aus- 
tria and  Bosnia,  Austria  and  Bohemia,  Germany  and 
Lorraine,  Russia  and  Poland.  It  is  not  England  coercing 
Ireland;  it  is  one  part  of  Ireland,  recklessly  backed  by  a 
small  reactionary  party  in  England,  blocking  the  will  of 
the  rest. 

Nearly  all  the  leading  English  Unionists  have  pub- 
licly admitted  their  conversion.  Mr.  Bonar  Law  him- 
self, once  the  leader  of  the  pro-Ulster  irreconcilables,  is 
plaintively  begging  the  Irish  to  say  what  sort  of  Home 
Rule  they  can  agree  upon.  Mr.  Garvin,  perhaps  the 
best  and  most  respected  of  Tory  journalists,  tells  the 
Government  that  it  is  disgraced  if  it  cannot  solve  the 
Irish  Question,  and  produces  a  very  good  Home  Rule 
scheme  of  his  own.  The  versatile  Lord  Northcliffe,  whose 
journals  simply  wallowed  in  bloody  insurrection  in  1914, 
now  makes  Home  Rule  speeches  at  an  Irish  dinner.  They 
are  all  Home  Rulers,  if  only  the  Irish  will  agree  among 
themselves  what  sort  of  Home  Rule  they  will  be  so 
obliging  as  to  accept. 

I  do  not  wish  to  excuse  the  English  Tories,  much  as  I 
respect  many  individuals  among  them.  They  prevented 
the  settlement  of  the  Irish  Question  till  disaster  oc- 
curred, and  their  change  of  heart  comes  a  little  late.  But 
our  business  is  with  the  future,  not  with  the  past.  Why 
is  it  that  an  Irish  settlement  is  so  difficult? 

The  fault  does  not  lie  with  the  Irish  Members.  Mr. 
Redmond  and  his  followers  have  behaved  with  a  broad- 
minded  patriotism  which  is  rare  in  political  history. 


14G  FAITH,  WAR,  AND   POLICY 

They  have  sunk  their  personal  feelings,  they  have  sub- 
mitted to  strange  insults  and  humiliations,  they  have 
imperilled  their  whole  position  as  leaders  of  Irish  opin- 
ion, in  order  to  serve  unreservedly  the  cause  of  the  Allies. 
Those  of  military  age,  and  some  who  were  well  be- 
yond it,  have  voluntarily  enlisted  or  taken  commissions. 
Some  have  been  killed.  The  speeches  of  one  or  two  of 
these  Irish  soldier  M.P.s,  such  as  Major  W.  Redmond 
and  Captain  Stephen  Gwynne,  have  wrung  the  hearts  of 
every  decent  Englishman  in  the  House.  Meantime  the 
Irish  regiments  have  fought  in  the  cause  of  the  British 
Empire  with  a  desperate  valour  which  ought  surely  to 
have  earned  a  hundred  times  over  the  freedom  of  their 
own  little  nation. 

In  the  opposite  scale  there  is  nothing  to  be  set  except 
a  few  outbreaks  of  bitter  speech,  seldom  unjustified, 
from  Mr.  Dillon  and  others;  a  certain  fractiousness 
among  the  Irish  free-lances,  like  Mr.  Ginnell;  and  now, 
at  last,  after  thirty  months  of  continued  disappoint- 
ment, the  formal  protest  of  the  whole  party  against  the 
Government. 

"We  could  trust  the  Irish  party,"  some  Tories  may 
say,  "but  we  cannot  give  the  Government  of  Ireland  to 
the  Sinn  Fein.  And  we  are  told  that  Redmond  has  lost 
his  influence,  since  the  Dublin  rebellion." 

There  is  something  in  this  argument.  During  the  last 
few  years  a  new  party  or  rather  a  great  new  stream  of 
thought  has  silently  grown  to  importance  in  Ireland. 
The  regular  Nationalist  Party  had  begun  to  suffer  from 
its  own  success,  as  well  as  from  its  failure.  Its  success 
made  it  all-powerful  in  Ireland,  leaving  Ulster  aside. 
Consequently,  critics  aver,  its  morale  deteriorated.  The 


IRELAND  147 

jobbers  and  time-servers  who  used  once  to  persecute  the 
Nationalists  when  they  were  weak,  now  joined  them  and 
got  offices  among  them.  The  saloon-keepers  —  a  ter- 
ribly powerful  class  in  Ireland  —  all  rushed  into  the 
National  League  and  were  apt  to  be  local  chairmen  and 
committeemen.  The  great  agitators  grew  elderly  and 
stiff  in  the  joints,  and  began  to  think  more  about  re- 
taining their  power  than  of  leading  their  people  to  the 
light.  In  Ireland,  as  in  all  nations  where  the  govern- 
ment comes  in  a  foreign  guise,  there  is  a  very  low  stand- 
ard of  honesty  in  dealing  with  public  money.  Public 
service  is  apt  to  present  itself  rather  in  the  light  of  fat 
jobs  to  collar  or  distribute,  and  the  best  way  to  secure 
the  jobs  was  to  belong  to  the  National  League.  It  is  im- 
possible for  a  stranger  to  judge  how  much  of  this  de- 
scription is  true;  it  is  certainly  in  the  air  in  Ireland. 

Ireland  has  never  been  poor  in  idealists,  especially  in 
those  of  the  unpractical  sort.  The  more  impulsive  young 
men  and  women,  idealist,  cranky,  rebellious,  malcontent, 
disappointed,  or  whatever  they  were,  began  to  turn  away 
from  the  National  League  and  the  Parliamentary  Party 
and  what  seemed  to  them  the  narrow-minded  tyranny  of 
the  priests.  Their  energies  found  outlet  in  different  chan- 
nels. There  was  a  great  revival  of  the  Irish  language. 
There  was  a  great  study  of  Irish  antiquities,  a  revival  of 
idealized  Irish  history.  Hundreds  of  young  clerks  and 
shop-assistants  after  a  hard  day's  work  would  gather  at 
night  to  study  these  severe  subjects  and  to  attune  their 
minds  to  the  supposed  purity  and  unworldliness  of  that 
Ancient  Ireland  which  formed  the  antithesis  of  the 
sordid  modern  world.  All  that  was  modern  and  sordid 
they  called  " English"  and  associated  with  the  English 
connection:  prosiness,  money-bags,  Dublin  Castle  and 


148  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

its  police,  dirty  publicans  and  gombeen-men,  fat,  cor- 
rupt aldermen  prating  of  Nationalism,  stupid  priests 
and  the  "Freeman's  Journal"  and  snubby  elderly 
gentlemen  and  time-servers  in  general.  That  was  all 
English,  and  the  opposite  of  it  was  true  Irish,  the  mark 
of  that  Ireland  that  had  once  been  in  the  idealized  past 
and  must  surely  be  born  again  if  they  only  remained 
true  to  themselves.  Let  their  motto  be  Sinn  Fein,  "  We 
Ourselves"  and  their  rule  of  life  be  to  reject  all  the  com- 
promises and  temptations  and  pollutions  of  the  great, 
ugly,  English-ridden  world. 

There  was  much  absurdity,  of  course,  in  this  move- 
ment. I  have  known  enthusiasts  for  the  revival  of  the 
ancient  Irish  language  who  could  not,  for  the  life  of 
them,  manage  to  learn  it.  They  could  just  learn  to  write 
their  names  in  it,  to  look  well  on  posters  when  they 
addressed  popular  meetings.  Others,  who  really  could 
speak  Irish,  used  to  get  into  quaint  situations  by  refus- 
ing to  speak  English.  I  myself  was  once  cursed  by  a 
branch  of  the  Gaelic  League.  The  curse  was  in  Irish,  but 
the  Secretary  was  obliging  enough  to  enclose  a  French 
translation  of  it,  explaining  that  he  would  not  demean 
himself  by  using  the  English  dialect.  He  came  to  dinner 
a  few  days  later  and  was  extremely  agreeable.  The  last 
I  heard  of  him,  he  was  fined  two  pounds  for  refusing  to 
answer  a  policeman  in  any  language  but  Irish. 

There  was  also,  besides  the  idealism  and  besides  the 
absurdity,  an  element  of  extreme  danger.  To  reject 
compromise  is  all  very  well  if  you  are  absolutely  right; 
but  it  becomes  deadly  dangerous  if  you  are,  like  most 
other  human  beings  since  the  creation  of  the  world,  a 
little  wrong  in  your  foundations.  It  is  so  easy  to  think 
you  are  heroically  striking  down  triumphant  Evil  and 


IRELAND  149 

then  find  that  you  have  only  murdered  a  good-natured 
policeman,  with  several  children,  while  he  was  lighting 
his  pipe. 

The  great  mischief  wrought  by  Sinn  Fein  has  been  to 
destroy  the  hopes  of  the  constitutional  Home  Rule 
movement.  The  quarrels  which  are  the  bane  of  Irish 
politics  began  soon  to  affect  it.  The  Sinn  Feiners  di- 
rected their  special  hatred  towards  the  Irish  Parliamen- 
tary Party.  It  was  contemptible  to  go  trafficking  with 
England  about  Ireland's  liberties.  No  true  Irishman 
ought  to  enter  the  doors  of  a  British  Parliament.  Home 
Rule  would  be  worthless  if  they  got  it.  It  would  still 
leave  them  dependent  on  England.  Complete  separa- 
tion was  the  goal,  and  the  method  was  simply  to  ignore 
England's  existence.  Let  their  elected  M.P.'s  stay  in 
Ireland  and  form  a  separate  body;  let  them  all  refuse  to 
pay  British  taxes  or  obey  British  laws,  and  oppose  a 
passive  resistance  to  all  England's  attempts  to  exert 
authority.  As  for  the  Nationalist  Members,  no  doubt  it 
was  a  pleasant  enough  job  for  them,  to  draw  four  hun- 
dred pounds  a  year  and  have  a  good  time  in  London, 
hobnobbing  with  English  Liberals  and  pretending  to 
work  for  a  Home  Rule  that  never  came  and  never  would 
come.  The  true  way  to  serve  Ireland  was  to  die  for  Ire- 
land. Let  the  Nationalists  do  that,  and  Ireland  would 
follow  them! 

The  taunt  was  essentially  foolish,  and  all  the  more 
unfair,  since  at  the  time  thousands  of  brave  Irishmen 
were  really  fighting  and  dying  in  the  common  cause,  con- 
vinced that  in  saving  France  and  England  they  would 
save  Ireland  too.  But  the  state  of  mind  which  pro- 
duced it  was  a  dangerous  one. 

When  the  rising  in  Dublin  came,  one  of  the  things 


150  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

that  surprised  many  observers  was  the  ferocity  shown 
by  various  boys  and  young  women.  Young  women  com- 
mitted unprovoked  murders,  lads  shot  wounded  soldiers 
in  their  hospital  clothes,  boys  of  fourteen  refused  to  sur- 
render and  fought  to  the  death.  Such  is  the  effect  on 
crude  and  unbalanced  minds  of  a  gospel  of  hatred  em- 
bittered by  small  irritations  and  persecutions.  It  ex- 
plains how  a  small  section  of  the  Sinn  Fein,  educated  and 
in  some  ways  high-minded  men,  allowed  themselves  to  be 
dragged  into  a  mad  and  criminal  enterprise,  which  was 
certain  to  recoil  heavily  against  their  country.  A  few 
old,  embittered  Fenians,  some  gangs  of  Dublin  roughs, 
and  a  number  of  the  malcontents  left  behind  by  some 
desperate  strikes  in  1914  account  for  the  rest  of  the 
rebels. 

The  rising  took  a  week  to  put  down,  and  at  the  end  of 
it  sixteen  men  were  executed.  It  was  not  a  large  num- 
ber. There  can  have  been  very  few  cases  in  history 
where  so  serious  an  outbreak  has  been  followed  by  so 
few  executions.  But  Ireland  is  a  great  sounding-board, 
and  the  sixteen  executions  have  reechoed  through  the 
world.  Austria,  I  believe,  has  executed  over  ten  thou- 
sand Bohemians  since  the  war  began. 

But  no  Government  sheds  blood  in  Ireland  with  im- 
punity. The  sixteen  are  now  martyrs,  and  the  mov- 
ing details  of  their  deaths  have  become  household 
words. 

In  considering  the  Irish  Question  a  man  finds  himself 
continually  saying,  "It  would  be  all  right  if  only  so-and- 
so  had  not  happened!"  If  only  Carson  had  not  been 
allowed  to  preach  civil  war ;  or  if  only  there  had  not  been 
the  Dublin  rising;  or,  even  after  the  rising,  if  there  had 


IRELAND  151 

not  been  the  executions;  or,  even  after  the  executions, 
if  only  there  had  not  been  wholesale  imprisonments  of 
suspects  till  the  jails  were  crowded!  And  now  people 
say,  since  most  of  the  suspects  were  fairly  soon  released, 
if  only  there  had  not  been  the  deportations  of  Sinn 
Feiners  without  trial !  (Some  people  add,  if  only  Dublin 
Castle  and  the  British  War  Office  were  gifted  with  tact 
and  sympathy  when  dealing  with  individuals  whom  they 
do  not  like:  but  the  people  who  expect  that,  live  in 
dreams.) 

Deportation  is  a  harsh  and  exasperating  form  of 
governmental  precaution.  A  man  is  living  peacefully 
with  his  wife  and  family  in  some  Irish  town,  earning  his 
living  by  serving  in  a  shop  or  by  writing  for  a  suspect 
newspaper.  Suddenly  the  police  ring  the  bell,  produce 
an  order  from  a  military  authority,  and  tell  him  he  is  to 
live  till  further  orders  in  Birmingham  or  Oxford  or  some 
other  place  where  he  is  a  stranger.  No  harm  is  done  to 
him;  he  is  not  even  a  prisoner.  But  meantime  he  loses 
his  livelihood,  his  house  is  left  on  his  hands,  he  probably 
finds  it  difficult  to  get  any  paid  work  in  his  new  place  of 
residence,  and  his  family,  whether  they  follow  him  or 
stay  behind,  are  left  in  a  very  awkward  position. 

And  yet,  what  else  is  an  unfortunate  Government  to 
do?  I  was  talking  a  few  days  ago  to  a  deporte,  an  agree- 
able and  well-read  man  of  much  intellectual  distinc- 
tion, for  whom  I  was  trying  to  get  some  work.  He 
was  complaining  bitterly  that  no  charge  had  been  made 
against  him;  he  was  an  absolutely  innocent  man.  I  ven- 
tured to  ask  him:  " Suppose  a  German  submarine  had 
come,  laden  with  arms,  to  the  bay  where  you  lived,  and 
asked  you  to  distribute  them  through  the  district,  what 
would  you  have  done?" 


152  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

He  hesitated  a  moment.  "The  bay  is  too  rocky;  they 
could  not  bring  a  submarine  there.  .  .  .  Well,  if  they 
had,  I  don't  know  what  I'd  have  done.  .  .  .  Yes,  I'd 
have  distributed  them." 

It  was  candid  of  him  to  speak  so  frankly.  But,  after 
all,  can  you  much  blame  a  Government  if,  in  the  midst  of 
a  long  and  very  terrible  war,  it  refuses  to  allow  people 
who  would  help  the  Germans  if  they  could  to  live  in 
places  where  their  help  would  be  effective?  For  my  part 
I  cannot. 

There  is  no  use  in  reproaches.  Everybody  can  make 
them,  and  everybody  has  deserved  them.  There  is  no 
use  in  recalling  the  wrongs  and  just  resentments  of  the 
past.  Nothing  will  help  in  the  Irish  Question  but  abso- 
lute mutual  forgiveness  and  absolute  concentration  on 
the  future. 

As  an  intellectual  problem  the  Irish  Question  is  not 
very  difficult;  nothing  like  as  difficult  as  the  Federation 
of  South  Africa,  for  instance.  The  only  difficulty  lies 
in  faults  of  human  nature,  in  self-deception,  vindictive- 
ness,  rooted  suspicion,  the  devotion  of  the  soul  to  party 
hatreds  and  the  fostering  of  age-long  feuds. 

The  next  move  must  come  from  Ulster.  Ulster  has 
beaten  the  rest  of  Ireland.  She  has  beaten  England, 
Scotland,  and  Wales.  She  can  afford  to  yield  a  little. 
The  one  strong  defence  to  be  made  for  the  inclusion  of 
Sir  Edward  Carson  in  the  British  Government,  against 
which  he  was  lately  conspiring,  is  that  a  Carson  Gov- 
ernment can  do  what  no  other  Government  can,  in  the 
way  of  appeasing  Ireland.  Let  the  present  Government 
grant,  in  any  reasonable  form,  some  sort  of  Home  Rule 
to  Ireland,  and  the  Ulster  Covenanters  can  surely  not 


IRELAND  153 

feel  injured  or  humiliated.  They  can  smile  a  grim  smile, 
and  feel  that,  since  they  have  clearly  shown  their 
Catholic  fellow  countrymen  who  was  master,  they  do 
not  so  much  mind  admitting  that  they  are  all  Irish- 
men. 


IX 

AMERICA  AND  THE  WAR 

(August,  1916) 


It  is  dangerous  to  comment  too  freely  on  the  psy- 
chology of  foreign  nations.  I  knew  a  man  who  held 
the  opinion  that  Americans  cared  for  only  three  things 
in  the  world:  comfort,  money,  and  safety  —  objects 
which  notoriously  inspire  aversion  in  the  normal  Briton. 
And  he  explained  this  view  at  some  length  to  two  young 
Americans,  one  of  whom  had  been  working  fourteen 
hours  a  day  for  the  relief  of  distress  in  Belgium,  while  the 
other,  with  a  sad  disregard  for  truth  and  the  feelings  of 
his  parents,  had  passed  himself  off  as  a  Canadian  in 
order  to  fight  in  the  British  Army. 

I  know  another  man,  an  American  man  of  letters,  who 
went  off  at  his  own  expense  at  the  time  of  the  Ger- 
man advance  in  Poland  to  help  the  Polish  refugees.  He 
worked  for  months  on  end  among  people  starving  and 
dying  of  typhus,  often  going  without  food  himself  and 
entirely  abstaining  from  some  of  the  most  ordinary  com- 
forts of  life.  When  I  last  met  him  he  had  seen  a  thou- 
sand people  dead  around  him  at  one  time.  He  was  then 
on  his  way  back  to  continue  his  work,  and  I  felt  some 
nervousness  on  hearing  he  was  to  pass  through  England. 
I  have  an  inward  feeling  that  some  one  at  this  moment  is 
explaining  to  him  that  Americans  ask  no  questions  about 
the  war  except  how  much  money  they  can  make  out  of 


AMERICA  AND  THE  WAR  155 

it,  and  the  one  thing  you  can  be  sure  of  about  a  Yank  is 
that  he  will  be  too  proud  to  fight. 

This  particular  man  will  very  likely  not  retaliate.  He 
will  smile  sadly  and  search  his  conscience,  and  reflect 
sympathetically  that  people  who  are  suffering  cannot 
help  being  irritable.  But  some  millions  of  his  fellow 
countrymen  will  answer  for  him,  and  they  have  rather  a 
pretty  wit  when  they  set  about  answering.  A  placard 
over  a  certain  large  cinema  show  in  New  York  once  put 
the  point  neatly:  ENGLISHMEN!  YOUR  KING  AND 
COUNTRY  WANT  YOU.    WE  DON'T. 

The  beauty  of  that  statement  is  that  it  finishes  the 
matter  and  leaves  nothing  to  argue  about.  But  if  you 
are  unwise  enough  to  wish  to  argue,  you  will  find  ample 
material.  Think  of  all  the  things,  to  begin  with,  that 
are  said  against  England  by  Englishmen.  Remember 
all  the  things  that  your  most  Radical  friends  have  said 
in  the  past  against  the  Tories  and  imperialists,  and  add 
to  it  all  that  the  Tories  used  to  say  about  Lloyd  George; 
double  it  by  all  that  the  U.D.C.  on  the  one  hand  and 
Mr.  Maxse  and  the  " Morning  Post"  on  the  other  are 
saying  about  every  one  who  does  not  worship  in  their 
own  particular  tabernacles;  sum  them  all  together,  and 
put  in  front  of  them  the  words:  "Honest  Englishmen 
themselves  confess — "!  The  effect  will  be  quite  sur- 
prising. It  would  be  no  wonder  if  the  simple-minded 
American  should  feel  some  prejudice  against  a  nation 
whose  leaders  are  all  in  the  pay  of  Germany  and  whose 
working-classes  spend  their  lives  in  a  constant  debauch ; 
a  nation  which  makes  up  for  its  inefficiency  in  the  field 
by  riotous  levity  at  home,  by  ferocious  persecution  of 
conscience  and  free  speech,  and  by  the  extreme  blood- 
thirstiness  of  its  ultimate  intentions  towards  the  enemy. 


156  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

The  wonder  is  that  he  feels  it  so  little;  that  some  sane 
instinct  generally  helps  him  to  know  the  grosser  kind  of 
lie  when  he  sefcs  it,  and  some  profound  consciousness  of 
ultimate  brotherhood  between  the  two  great  English- 
speaking  peoples  is  so  much  stronger  than  all  the  recur- 
rent incidents  of  superficial  friction. 

The  main  cause  of  friction  is,  without  doubt,  that  in 
the  greatest  crisis  of  our  history  we  expected  more  from 
America  than  she  was  disposed  to  give.  We  felt  to  her 
a  little  as  the  Danes  felt  towards  us  in  1864,  as  the 
French  felt  towards  us  in  1870.  When  Belgium  was 
invaded,  when  the  Lusitania  was  sunk,  the  average  Eng- 
lishman did,  without  doubt,  look  expectantly  towards 
America,  and  America  did  not  respond  to  our  expecta- 
tions. Were  those  expectations  reasonable  and  natural, 
or  were  they  not? 

The  answer  seems  to  me  quite  clear.  They  were  en- 
tirely natural,  but  not  quite  reasonable.  We  could  not 
help  feeling  them;  but  it  was  not  at  all  likely  that  the 
average  American  voter  would  feel  as  we  did.  How 
should  he?  One  need  not  speak  of  the  six  million  Ger- 
mans, and  the  innumerable  other  aliens  in  the  United 
States;  nor  yet  of  the  traditional  anti-British  feeling  in 
the  political  "mob."  The  plain  fact  is  that  nations  do 
not  go  to  war  for  remote  philanthropic  objects.  They 
get  near  it  sometimes,  as  we  got  near  it  with  Turkey  in 
1895,  over  the  Armenian  massacres.  But  they  do  not 
go  over  the  edge,  except  where  the  philanthropic  in- 
dignation is  reinforced  by  other  motives  or  causes  of 
quarrel.  And  even  there,  time  is  needed  to  awake  a 
whole  nation.  Mental  preparation  is  needed;  the  culprit 
must  have  a  bad  character  already;  the  proof  of  the 
crime  committed  must  be  exceedingly  clear.   None  of 


AMERICA  AND  THE  WAR  157 

these  conditions  was  present  in  1914.  The  Germans  were 
greatly  respected  in  the  United  States.  There  had  been 
a  powerful  and  assiduous  court  paid  to  American  opin- 
ion. Every  single  crime  committed  by  Germany  was 
accompanied  by  a  cloud  of  dust  and  counter-accusation. 
It  was  the  Russians  who  insisted  on  war;  it  was  France 
which  invaded  Belgium;  it  was  the  Belgian  women  and 
children  who  committed  atrocities  on  the  German  sol- 
diers; it  was  the  English  who  used  explosive  bullets  and 
poisonous  gas;  I  forget  whether  it  was  the  Lusitania 
which  tried  to  sink  the  poor  submarine,  or  if  that  was 
only  the  Arabic;  but  at  every  single  point  at  which  the 
national  indignation  of  America  might  have  exploded 
the  issue  was  confused  and  befogged.  We  should  remem- 
ber the  immortal  words  of  the  Pope,  when  confronted  by 
the  twentieth  or  thirtieth  demonstration  of  the  bestiali- 
ties done  by  the  Germans  in  Belgium:  "But,  you  know, 
they  say  they  did  n't."  The  same  answer  was  always 
open,  not  only  to  Colonel  Bryan  (why  should  that  emi- 
nent pacifist  be  denied  his  full  claim  to  military  glory?), 
but  to  men  of  much  less  nebulous  judgement  than  he. 

No;  it  was  not  reasonable  to  expect  the  United  States 
to  plunge  into  war  for  motives  of  philanthropy.  And  if 
one  begins  to  put  the  question  on  other  grounds,  then 
clearly  it  is  not  for  us  foreigners  to  decide  what  course 
best  suits  the  interest  or  dignity  of  the  United  States. 
They  know  their  own  case,  pro  and  con,  far  better  than 
we  can,  and  we  certainly  need  not  complain  of  either  the 
skill  or  the  fervour  with  which  our  friends  in  that  great, 
strange  country  have  stated  our  case. 

But  the  matter  is  decided.  America  will  not  join  in 
this  war.  Both  political  parties  are  united  on  that  point; 
and  only  a  few  voices  of  independent  thinkers,  voices 


158  FAITH,  WAR,  AND   POLICY 

sometimes  of  great  weight  and  eloquence,  are  lifted  in 
protest.  I  do  not,  of  course,  say  that  there  might  not 
arise  some  new  and  unexpected  issue  which  would  com- 
pel her  to  change  her  policy;  but,  so  far  as  the  issues  are 
now  known,  the  Americans  have  made  up  their  minds 
to  have  no  war. 

Such  a  decision  has,  of  course,  had  its  consequences. 
Any  person  who,  after  hesitating,  comes  to  a  decision 
likes  afterwards  to  have  as  many  grounds  as  possible  for 
justifying  himself,  and  the  same  holds  of  a  nation.  If 
America  had,  for  good  or  evil,  plunged  into  the  war,  she 
would  have  found  easily  a  thousand  reasons  for  being 
enthusiastic  about  it  and  for  justifying  her  intimate  sym- 
pathy with  us.  It  is  now  the  other  way.  She  cannot  help 
feeling  a  certain  coldness  towards  people  who,  as  she 
thinks,  tempted  her  to  dangerous  courses;  who  certainly 
felt,  however  unreasonably,  a  shade  of  disappointment 
about  her.  What  right  had  we  to  be  disappointed;  to 
hint  by  our  manner,  if  not  by  words,  that  she  had  chosen 
safety  rather  than  the  beau  role  ?  After  all,  why  should 
she  fight  England's  battles?  Wicked  as  the  Germans 
are,  —  and  hardly  any  normal  American  defends  them, 
— is  England  so  entirely  disinterested  and  blameless?  Is 
Ireland  so  much  more  contented  than  Alsace-Lorraine? 
Do  the  "Black  List"  and  the  Paris  Resolutions  and  the 
" Orders  in  Council"  suggest  that  the  new  Liberal  Eng- 
land is  so  very  different  from  the  old  England  that  was 
America's  natural  enemy?  The  President  has  used  lan- 
guage which  looks  like  a  repudiation  of  all  moral  or  hu- 
man interest  in  Europe's  quarrels:  "With  the  causes 
and  objects  of  the  war  America  is  not  concerned."  I  do 
not  believe  that  the  President  himself  really  would  hold 
to  that  dictum,  and  I  am  sure  his  countrymen  would 


AMERICA  AND  THE  WAR  159 

not.  The  principle  is  too  cynical  for  either.  But,  so  far 
as  direct  public  action  is  concerned,  that  statement 
holds  the  field.  Belgium,  Armenia,  Poland,  Miss  Cavell, 
the  horrors  of  Wittenberg,  the  wholesale  deportations 
of  women,  the  habitual  killing  of  unarmed  civilians;  all 
these  are  to  count  as  matters  of  indifference  for  the  ex- 
ecutive government  of  the  United  States. 

But  not  for  the  human  beings  who  compose  the  United 
States,  whether  in  the  Government  or  out  of  it.  The 
more  they  have  decided  not  to  intervene  publicly  in  the 
war,  the  more  they  are  ready  to  pour  out  their  sym- 
pathy, their  work,  and  their  riches  to  help  the  distresses 
of  the  war.  Never  was  there  a  nation  so  generous,  so 
ready  in  sympathy,  so  quick  to  respond  to  the  call  of  suf- 
fering. They  exceed  England  in  these  qualities  almost  as 
much  as  England  exceeds  the  average  of  Europe.  They 
will  stand  aloof  from  the  savage  old  struggle,  free,  un- 
polluted, rejoicing  in  their  own  peace  and  exceeding 
prosperity,  but  always  ready  to  send  their  missionaries 
and  almoners  to  bind  the  wounds  of  more  benighted 
lands.  The  wars  of  Europe  are  not  their  business. 

Unless,  indeed,  after  the  war,  the  victor  should  come 
out  too  powerful?  A  victorious  Germany  is  fortunately 
out  of  the  question ;  but  a  victorious  England  —  might 
not  that  bring  trouble?  America  must  after  all  be 
"  prepared." 

II 

It  is  hard  for  an  Englishman  to  understand  how  a  very 
great  nation,  a  very  proud  nation,  whom  we,  accustomed 
to  range  the  whole  circuit  of  the  world  and  find  our 
brothers  trading  or  governing  in  the  antipodes,  look 


160  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

upon  instinctively  as  our  own  kinsmen  and  natural 
friends,  should  be  content  to  stay  apart  from  the  great 
movement  of  the  world  and  to  strike  no  blow  either  for 
democracy  or  absolutism;  to  leave  it  to  others  to  decide 
whether  peace  or  war  shall  be  the  main  regulator  of 
national  life,  whether  treaties  shall  be  sacred  or  not, 
whether  or  not  "government  of  the  people,  by  the  peo- 
ple, for  the  people"  shall  perish  from  the  greater  part 
of  the  earth.  And  many  Americans  feel  as  we  do.  The 
most  brilliant  and  magnetic  of  America's  recent  Presi- 
dents feels  as  we  do.  But,  as  a  rule,  I  believe,  the  aver- 
age American  is  not  only  content,  but  proud  to  stand 
thus  aloof  and  indifferent.  The  line  of  thought  leading 
to  such  a  pride  is  one  familiar  to  many  generations  of 
Americans,  the  glory  of  their  immense  isolation. 

Why  should  they  turn  back  to  mix  again  in  the  misery 
and  blood-guiltiness  of  that  evil  Old  World  from  which 
their  fathers  and  mothers  fled?  They  will  forgive  it, 
now  that  they  are  free  and  safe.  They  will  forgive  it, 
they  will  revisit  it  sometimes  with  a  kind  of  affection, 
they  will  pour  out  their  abundant  riches  to  alleviate  its 
sufferings,  but  they  will  never  again  be  entangled  in  its 
schemes  and  policies,  they  will  never  again  give  it  power 
over  them. 

Generation  after  generation  of  American  settlers 
have  been  refugees  from  European  persecution.  Refugee 
Puritans,  refugee  Quakers,  refugee  Catholics,  French 
Huguenots,  English  and  German  Republicans,  in  later 
days  persecuted  Jews  and  Poles  and  Russian  revolu- 
tionaries, have  all  found  shelter  and  freedom  in  America, 
and  most  of  them  some  degree  of  prosperity  and  public 
respect.  And  far  more  numerous  than  these  definite 
sufferers  from  religious  or  political  persecution  have  been 


AMERICA  AND  THE  WAR  161 

the  swarms  of  settlers  who,  for  one  reason  or  another, 
had  found  life  too  hard  in  the  Old  World.  In  every  gen- 
eration the  effect  is  repeated.  Europe  is  the  place  that 
people  fly  from;  the  place  of  tyrants  and  aristocracies, 
of  wars  and  crooked  diplomacy;  the  place  where  the 
poor  are  so  miserable  that  they  leave  their  homes 
and  families  and  spend  their  last  shillings  in  order  to 
work  at  the  lowest  manual  labour  in  the  one  land  on 
earth  which  will  really  assure  them  "life,  liberty,  and 
the  pursuit  of  happiness."  No  wonder  it  is  easy  for  aa 
American  to  reject  all  responsibility  for  the  troubles  of 
Europe ! 

Nay,  when  you  meet  an  American  who  is  really  in- 
terested in  Europe,  you  will  be  surprised  to  find  how 
little  he  cares  for  the  things  that  we  consider  liberal  or 
progressive.  Such  things  are  not  what  he  wants  of  Eu- 
rope. He  can  get  them  at  home.  He  likes  Europe  to  be 
European.  What  he  asks  of  Europe  is  picturesqueness; 
old  castles,  and  Louis  XIV,  and  Austrian  rules  of  eti- 
quette, and  an  unreformed  House  of  Lords.  When  we 
reform  such  things  away,  he  is  rather  regretful,  as  we  in 
England  might  be  at  the  Chinese  cutting  off  their  pig- 
tails. In  his  leisure  hours  he  likes  us  as  we  are,  and  when 
it  comes  to  business  his  only  determination  is  that  we 
shall  never  again  interfere  with  him. 

I  do  not  say  that  such  an  attitude  is  wise  or  right; 
much  less  that  it  is  universal  in  America.  But  it  is  a  state 
of  mind  which  is  easily  intelligible  and  which  must 
always  be  reckoned  with. 

A  Liberal  Englishman  will  quite  understand  it.  He 
may,  perhaps,  regard  it  with  a  good  deal  of  sympathy, 
and  even  imagine  that  it  must  lead  on  the  whole  to  a 
feeling  of  friendliness  towards  England  as  contrasted 


1G2  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

with  the  less  liberal  Powers.  But  it  is  not  so.  Every 
large  wave  of  feeling  demands  a  human  representative  or 
symbol,  and  the  course  of  history  has  decreed  that  to 
the  average  American  the  symbol  of  European  tyranny 
is  England.  He  knows,  of  course,  that  the  Government 
of  Russia  or  Prussia  or  Austria  or  divers  other  nations 
may  be  much  worse  than  that  of  England;  but  his  own 
historical  quarrel,  repeated  through  many  generations, 
has  been  with  England,  and  the  typical  fight  for  human 
freedom  against  tyranny  is  the  American  War  of  Inde- 
pendence; next  to  that  comes  the  War  of  1812.  The 
cause  is  now  won.  Freedom  is  safe,  and  his  relations 
with  England  are  peaceful,  and  even  friendly.  Yet  the 
price  of  freedom  is  eternal  vigilance.  When  he  hears  the 
words  "Orders  in  Council,"  " Restriction  of  Trade," 
"  Right  of  Search,"  " Black  List,"  something  argumenta- 
tive and  anxious  rises  within  him.  When  he  hears  that 
some  person  has  been  condemned  as  a  rebel  against  the 
British  Government,  he  tends  to  murmur,  "So  was 
George  Washington!" 

No;  he  bears  no  grudge  against  his  old  enemy,  but 
England  belongs  to  Europe,  not  to  America;  and  she  can 
stay  where  she  belongs.  For  his  part,  what  does  he  want 
with  other  nations? 

He  is  a  citizen  of  the  greatest  free  nation  in  the  world, 
and  not  only  the  greatest,  but,  by  every  sane  standard 
that  he  believes  in,  infinitely  the  best.  It  has  a  larger 
white  population  than  the  whole  British  Empire.  Its 
men  and  women  are  more  prosperous,  cleaner,  better 
paid,  better  fed,  better  dressed,  better  educated,  better 
in  physique  than  any  others  on  the  face  of  the  globe. 
They  have  simpler  and  saner  ideals,  more  kindliness  and 
common  sense,  more  enterprise,  and  more  humanity. 


AMERICA  AND  THE  WAR  1C3 

Silly  people  in  Europe,  blind,  like  their  ancestors,  im- 
agine that  America  somehow  lacks  culture,  and  must 
look  abroad  for  its  art  and  learning;  why,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  the  greatest  sculptor  since  Michael  Angelo  was  an 
American,  Saint-Gaudens;  the  two  best  painters  of  the 
last  decades,  Abbey  and  Sargent,  were  both  Americans; 
up  to  last  year  the  most  famous  English  novelist  was  an 
American;  the  best  public  architecture  is  notoriously  to 
be  found  in  America,  as  well  as  the  best  public  concerts 
and  libraries,  and  the  most  important  foundations  for 
scientific  research.  And  to  crown  our  friend's  confident 
picture,  there  is  no  country  on  earth  where  the  children 
are  so  happy. 

A  friend  of  mine  stayed  last  year  in  a  summer  camp 
of  young  men  and  women  in  a  forest  in  the  Middle  West, 
and  never  once  heard  the  European  War  mentioned. 
One  night,  as  they  looked  over  a  moonlit  lake,  a  young 
student  spoke  thoughtfully  of  the  peacefulness  of  the 
scene,  and  of  the  contrast  it  made  with  the  terrible 
sufferings  of  mankind  elsewhere.  My  friend  agreed, 
and  murmured  something  about  the  sufferings  of 
Europe.  "Lord,  I  was  n't  thinking  of  Europe,"  said  the 
young  man:  "I  was  thinking  of  the  thunderstorms  in 
Dakota." 

If  only  they  could  really  remain  aloof!  But  they  can- 
not. There  is  at  least  one  Power  with  whom  they  are 
constantly  in  contact,  and  whose  world-wide  interests 
are  constantly  rubbing  against  theirs  both  by  land  and 
sea;  and  that  Power  is  Great  Britain. 

"When  two  empires  find  their  interests  continually 
rubbing  against  each  other  in  different  parts  of  the 
world,"  said  Sir  Edward  Grey  in  1911,  "there  is  no  half- 
way house  possible  between  constant  liability  to  friction 


164  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

and  cordial  friendship."  That  is  the  gentle  and  states- 
manlike way  of  putting  it.  An  eloquent  American, 
whose  speech  this  year  has  been  circulated  widely  across 
the  continent,  phrased  the  matter  more  strongly.  He 
advocated  definitely  a  British  alliance  on  the  ground 
that  between  two  nations  so  intimately  connected  and 
touching  each  other  at  so  many  points  there  is  no  third 
way:  it  must  be  either  alliance  or  war.  Yet  alliance, 
after  what  we  have  seen,  seems  impossible;  and  war  can- 
not even  for  an  instant  be  thought  of.  It  would  be  the 
last  disgrace  to  the  modern  world,  the  final  downfall  of 
civilization. 

Let  us  try  to  consider  what  forces  are  working  in 
either  direction. 


Ill 

"Either  alliance  or  war"!  It  sounds  at  first  hearing  a 
fantastic  exaggeration.  Yet  the  words  have  been  spoken 
by  sober-minded  people,  and  it  is  worth  while  trying  to 
think  them  out.  It  is  easy  for  an  Englishman  to  find  in 
America  confirmation  of  whatever  opinions  he  happens 
to  hold,  and  terribly  easy  for  him  to  get  the  proportional 
importance  of  such  opinions  completely  wrong.  Indigna- 
tion with  Germany  and  horror  at  her  cruelties;  emotion 
about  the  Irish  rebellion  and  its  suppression;  irritation 
at  the  Black  List;  angry  alarm  at  the  Paris  Resolu- 
tions; a  general  desire  for  kindness  to  everybody,  and 
especially  for  a  quick  and  generous  peace  —  all  these 
waves  of  sentiment,  and  many  others,  are  to  be  found  in 
America,  and  possess  their  own  importance  and  influ- 
ence. But  it  seems  to  me  that  there  are  two  currents  of 
feeling  that  have  swept  the  whole  continent,  and  are 


AMERICA  AND  THE  WAR  165 

likely,  whatever  party  is  in  power,  to  shape  the  effective 
policy  of  the  United  States. 

The  first  reaction  produced  by  the  war  and  the  de- 
termination not  to  participate  in  it  has  been  the  move- 
ment for  "Preparedness."  It  is  first  a  preparedness  for 
war.  England,  according  to  popular  opinion,  had  been 
unprepared,  and  France  not  much  better.  America,  had 
she  tried  to  enter  the  war,  would  have  been  more  utterly 
unprepared  than  either.  Suppose  the  German  attack 
had  fallen  on  her? 

The  direction  of  this  first  movement  has  gradually 
changed  with  the  course  of  events.  The  campaign  of 
" Preparedness"  presupposes  some  possible  or  probable 
aggressor,  and  it  has  gradually  become  clear  that  that 
aggressor  will  not,  for  many  years  to  come,  be  Germany. 
The  prospect  of  a  really  victorious  Germany  would 
shake  America  to  her  foundations  and  probably  change 
completely  the  national  policy;  but  there  is  now  no  such 
prospect.  The  danger,  if  there  is  any,  will  come  from 
a  victorious  Great  Britain,  allied,  as  America  always 
remembers,  with  a  victorious  and  unexhausted  Japan. 
Other  neutral  nations  in  this  war  may  be  waiting  to  side 
with  the. conqueror;  but  America  is  built  on  too  large 
a  scale  for  that.  She  will  arm  against  the  conqueror,  and 
be  prodigal  of  help  to  the  vanquished. 

The  "Preparedness"  campaign  is  still  in  its  early 
stages  and  has  not  assumed  its  definite  form.  But  it 
started  as  a  spontaneous  non-party  movement;  it  was 
taken  up  by  the  Republican  Opposition;  it  was  eagerly 
supported  by  President  Wilson  and  his  Government;  it 
has  been  clearly  thought  out  and  firmly  developed  by 
Mr.  Hughes.  Army,  navy,  and  mercantile  marine  are 
all  to  be  increased  and  developed;  but  it  is  noteworthy 


1GG  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

that  more  stress  is  laid  on  the  navy  than  on  the  army, 
and  politicians  have  already  uttered  the  ominous  phrase, 
"A  fleet  that  shall  not  be  at  the  mercy  of  the  British 
fleet"!  More  important  still  must  be  the  preparation 
for  a  great  mercantile  rivalry.  Vast  sums  have  already 
been  appropriated  for  shipbuilding,  and  other  steps,  too, 
are  to  be  taken  to  secure  for  America  her  proper  position 
in  shipping  and  in  foreign  trade.  No  more  dependence 
upon  English  bottoms !  Competition  will  be  very  severe. 
At  the  end  of  the  war,  Mr.  Hughes  warned  the  audience 
in  his  Notification  Speech,  "the  energies  of  each  of  the 
new  belligerent  nations,  highly  trained,  will  be  turned 
to  production.  These  are  days  of  terrible  discipline  for 
the  nations  at  war.  .  .  .  Each  is  developing  a  national 
solidarity,  a  knowledge  of  method,  a  realization  of  ca- 
pacity hitherto  unapproached."  Mr.  Hughes  is  too  wise 
and  broad-minded  to  put  his  thought  in  a  threatening 
shape.  But  most  of  his  hearers  throughout  that  vast  hall 
thought  of  the  Resolutions  of  Paris,  and  felt  that  if  the 
Allies  chose  to  pursue  war  methods  in  their  commercial 
action,  America  must  be  ready  to  respond. 

One's  heart  sinks  at  the  prospect  opened  out  by  this 
policy.  Trade  rivalry;  severe  protection;  the  State 
deliberately  entering  into  the  commercial  contest  with 
subsidies  and  penalties;  competitive  shipbuilding;  the 
desire  for  a  strong  navy  behind  the  merchant  fleet;  and 
at  the  end  of  a  vista  that  prize  which  has  dazzled  so 
many  nations,  some  of  them  perhaps  not  much  less 
peace-loving  and  level-headed  than  the  United  States, 
the  position  of  recognized  centrality  and  supremacy 
among  the  great  nations  of  the  world. 

Is  there  no  prospect  of  escape? 

Yes,  there  is.   The  above  is  the  first  great  current  of 


AMERICA  AND  THE  WAR  167 

feeling  that,  in  my  judgement,  has  swept  the  whole  peo- 
ple of  the  United  States;  the  second  is  the  antidote  to  it, 
and  is  almost,  if  not  quite,  equally  strong.  It  is  the  de- 
termination that,  if  America  can  help  it,  a  colossal  ini- 
quity like  the  present  war  shall  not  be  allowed  to  occur 
again.  The  feeling  needs  no  explanation.  It  is  that  of 
every  Englishman  of  moderately  liberal  feelings,  and  is 
deeply  ingrained  in  the  nature  of  the  ordinary  American. 
It  has  swept  through  all  political  parties  and  most  other 
sections  of  the  community,  except  a  few  extreme  paci- 
fists and  those  pro-Germans  who  are  working  for  an 
inconclusive  peace  and  a  second  war. 

It  was  first  formulated  by  Mr.  Taft,  as  president  of  the 
League  to  Enforce  Peace.  Mr.  Taft's  series  of  arbitra- 
tion treaties,  following  on  those  initiated  by  John  Hay, 
made  him  the  natural  champion  of  this  further  effort 
to  organize  the  prevention  of  future  wars.  The  general 
idea  is  quite  simple  and  well  known :  a  League  of  Powers, 
bound  to  settle  their  differences  by  conference  or  arbitra- 
tion, and  equally  bound  to  make  joint  war  on  any  Power 
which,  in  a  dispute  with  one  of  them,  refuses  arbitration 
and  insists  on  war. 

The  plan  was  immediately  welcomed  by  public  opinion 
in  the  States.  It  spread  everywhere.  President  Wilson 
committed  himself  to  it  last  May  in  an  emphatic  speech, 
which  was  perhaps  a  little  too  tenderly  tactful  towards 
the  Germans  to  be  whole-heartedly  acceptable  in  Eng- 
land. But  in  point  of  fact  most  of  the  leaders  of  English 
thought  had  already  expressed  approval  of  the  princi- 
ple. It  is  no  less  significant  that  the  federated  Chamber 
of  Commerce  of  the  United  States,  a  powerful  and  ex- 
tremely cautious  body,  has  voted  by  large  majorities  in 
favour  of  the  policy  of  the  League,  and  by  overwhelming 


168  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

majorities  for  all  the  proposals  but  one.  (Just  over  a 
third  of  the  delegates  shrank  from  committing  them- 
selves to  actual  war  for  the  sake  of  peace,  though  they 
were  ready  to  agree  to  an  absolute  boycott  of  the  peace- 
breaker.)  And,  finally,  Mr.  Hughes,  in  his  Notification 
Address,  has  thrown  the  whole  strength  of  the  Republi- 
can Party  into  the  scheme.  His  words  are  well  thought 
out:  "  We  are  deeply  interested  in  what  I  may  term  the 
organization  of  peace.  We  cherish  no  illusions.  We  know 
that  the  recurrence  of  war  is  not  to  be  prevented  by 
pious  wishes.  If  the  conflict  of  national  interests  is  not 
to  be  brought  to  the  final  test  of  force,  there  must  be  a 
development  of  international  organization  in  order  to 
provide  international  justice  and  to  safeguard  as  far  as 
practicable  the  peace  of  the  world."  In  addition  to  the 
International  Tribunal  and  the  sanction  of  armed  force 
behind  it,  "there  are  also  legislative  needs.  We  need 
conferences  of  the  nations  to  formulate  international 
rules,  to  establish  principles,  to  modify  and  extend  in- 
ternational law  so  as  to  adapt  it  to  new  conditions  and 
remove  causes  of  international  difference." 

This  is  obviously  no  fantastic  scheme.  It  is  accepted 
by  the  leaders  of  both  parties,  and  by  the  enormous  pre- 
ponderance of  American  opinion,  both  progressive  and 
conservative,  both  educated  and  uneducated.  It  is  only 
rejected  by  the  open  enemies  of  England  and  by  some  of 
the  extreme  pacifists. 

It  is  hard  at  present  for  the  leaders  of  a  belligerent 
nation  to  come  prominently  forward  in  favour  of  such 
a  scheme  as  this.  For  one  thing  they  cannot  act  without 
their  allies;  for  another,  they  must  not  lay  themselves 
open  to  the  charge  that  they  are  spending  their  time  and 
thought  on  any  object  but  the  winning  of  the  war.  Still, 


AMERICA  AND  THE  WAR  169 

there  is  little  doubt  about  the  general  attitude  of  the 
leaders  of  public  opinion  in  England  towards  a  scheme  of 
this  kind.  Mr.  Asquith,  Mr.  Balfour,  and  Viscount  Grey, 
among  others,  have  spoken  pretty  clearly. 

"Long  before  this  war,"  said  the  last-named,  on  May 
15,  1916,  "I  hoped  for  a  league  of  nations  that  would  be 
united,  quick,  and  instant  to  prevent,  and,  if  need  be, 
to  punish  the  violation  of  international  treaties,  of  pub- 
lic right,  of  national  independence,  and  would  say  to  na- 
tions that  came  forward  with  grievances  and  claims: 
'Put  them  before  an  impartial  tribunal.  If  you  can  win 
at  this  bar,  you  will  get  what  you  want.  If  you  cannot, 
you  shall  not  have  what  you  want.  And  if  instead  you 
attempt  to  start  a  war,  we  shall  adjudge  you  the  com- 
mon enemy  of  humanity  and  treat  you  accordingly/ 
Unless  mankind  learns  from  this  war  to  avoid  war,  the 
struggle  will  have  been  in  vain." 

Almost  all  opinion  in  England  agrees;  so,  as  far  as 
my  information  goes,  does  opinion  in  France.  But  in 
America  the  course  of  events  has  brought  the  move- 
ment more  sharply  to  the  front  and  faced  it  with  a  far 
more  emphatic  alternative.  If  we  and  our  allies  respond 
to  this  movement,  there  is  good  hope  for  the  world;  the 
enemy  may  respond  or  not,  as  he  prefers.  If  we  reject 
it,  there  is  before  us,  not  merely  the  possibility  of  some 
unknown  future  war,  such  as  there  was  before  the  pres- 
ent shaping  of  the  nations:  there  is  a  peril  clearer  and 
more  precise.  There  are  definite  seeds  of  international 
rivalry  already  sown  and  growing;  there  are  on  both 
sides  of  the  Atlantic  the  deliberate  beginnings  of  a  move- 
ment which,  however  justifiable  at  present,  needs  but 
a  little  development  to  become  dangerous;  there  is  the 
certain  prospect  of  those  thousand  disputes  which  are 


170  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

bound  to  arise  between  two  great  commercial  nations 
competing  hard  for  the  same  markets. 

American  preparedness  will  soon  be  an  accomplished 
fact;  American  readiness  for  a  League  to  Enforce  Peace 
after  the  war  is  probably  a  fact  already.  We  must  not, 
of  course,  be  precipitate;  we  must  not  forget  that  our 
actual  allies  have  obviously  the  first  claim  on  us.  We 
must  not  make  any  claim  as  of  right  on  the  sympathy 
of  the  United  States,  or  ask  her  for  a  jot  more  than  she 
is  prepared  to  offer.  But  in  the  end  it  will  rest  largely, 
though  not  entirely,  with  us  in  Great  Britain  to  decide 
whether  that  preparedness  shall  be  merely  an  instru- 
ment for  the  promotion  of  American  interests  against 
those  of  her  rivals,  or  a  great  force  to  work  in  conjunc- 
tion with  us  and  our  friends  for  organizing  the  peace 
of  the  world.  On  those  lines  alliance  will  be  possible 
after  all. 


X 

AMERICA  AND  ENGLAND1 

{November,  1916) 

Your  Excellency,  Lord  Bryce,  Ladies  and  Gen- 
tlemen :  — 

I  confess  that  from  my  boyhood  up,  long  before  I  had 
any  knowledge  to  support  the  instinctive  feeling,  I  have 
felt  an  ardent  and  even  romantic  interest  in  America. 
After  all,  America  is  the  great  representative  of  de- 
mocracy, and  the  man  who  has  no  faith  in  democracy 
really  confesses  that  he  has  no  faith  in  the  human  race. 
And  still  more  America  in  a  peculiar  way  represents  the 
hopes  of  the  future.  She  embodies  the  greatest  experi- 
ment known  to  history  at  escaping  from  the  trammels 
of  the  past,  while  using  the  experience  of  the  past,  and 
starting  humanity  afresh  with  a  clean  slate.  Such  an 
experiment  could  not,  of  course,  be  confined  to  the  mem- 
bers of  a  single  nation.  It  must  throw  open  its  arms  to  a 
large  part  of  the  world.  And  we  in  Great  Britain  may 
well  be  satisfied  with  the  share  that  we  have  taken  and 
still  possess  in  this  building-up  of  the  nation  of  the  clean 
slate. 

You  will  hardly  expect  me  to  speak  about  the  Presi- 
dential election.  We  all  think  about  it;  but  it  is  ground 
on  which  Mr.  Roosevelt  himself  would  recognize  that 
an  Englishman,  if  he  walks  at  all,  must  walk  "pussy- 
footedly."    The  one  fact  that  stands  out  most  promi- 

1  Address  to  the  Mayflower  Club,  November  14,  1916. 


172  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

ncntly  to  an  observer  at  a  distance  is  the  high  personal 
quality  of  both  the  candidates.  The  record  of  American 
Presidents  as  a  whole  is  a  great  testimonial  to  democ- 
racy; and  it  is  certainly  true  in  the  present  instance  that, 
in  force  of  character,  in  integrity,  and  in  intellectual 
power,  both  candidates  are  men  of  the  highest  rank,  who 
would  do  honour  to  any  Cabinet  in  the  world.  On  the 
matter  with  which  in  England  we  are  most  concerned,  — 
the  war  in  Europe,  —  we  may  also  claim  that  both  can- 
didates have  —  what  shall  I  say?  I  will  not  say  any 
predilection  in  favour  of  the  Allies,  for  I  believe  them 
to  be  just  and  impartial;  but  they  both  have  the  thing 
which  to  us  matters  most,  some  real  understanding  of 
the  aims  and  causes,  the  nature  and  origin,  of  the  con- 
flict. 

Ladies  and  gentlemen,  if  you  take  a  long  view  of  his- 
tory I  think  you  will  find  that  we  stand  now  at  a  dra- 
matic and  momentous  point.  You  in  America  are  to  his- 
tory a  nation  of  refugees,  a  nation  built  up  by  men  and 
women  who  fled  over  a  thousand  leagues  of  inhospitable 
sea  to  escape  from  the  oppressions  and  entanglements 
of  Europe,  and  especially,  in  your  early  days,  from  those 
of  Great  Britain.  English  Cavaliers,  Puritans,  Quakers, 
Catholics,  Scotch  Presbyterians,  have  all  helped  to 
build  you  up.  In  later  generations,  when  there  was  no 
more  need  for  people  to  fly  for  refuge  from  Great  Brit- 
ain, came  the  refugees  of  central  and  eastern  Europe, 
and  fragments  of  all  the  peoples  that  are  still  ground 
down  by  domestic  poverty  or  the  misgovernment  of  the 
Turk.  It  is,  perhaps,  a  paradox  to  speak  of  your  great 
and  powerful  continent  at  the  present  time  as  a  nation 
of  refugees.  But  I  think  the  memory  of  your  origin  still 
affects  your  policy  and  certainly  still  haunts  your  imag- 


AMERICA  AND  ENGLAND  173 

ination.  Most  nations  have  some  sort  of  legendary  con- 
ception of  themselves,  some  fable  convenue  in  which  they 
instinctively  believe,  even  when  it  has  ceased  to  cor- 
respond with  the  facts.  I  believe  great  masses  of  people 
in  America  unconsciously  think  of  themselves  as  refu- 
gees like  their  ancestors,  and  of  Great  Britain  as  a  coun- 
try of  lords  and  flunkeys,  pickpockets  and  John-Bull- 
like farmers  in  swallowtail  coats,  still  governed  by 
George  III  and  Lord  North  or  the  "Sea  Tyrants  of 
1813. "  When  we  wish  to  speak  to  you  as  brothers,  you 
remember  that  we  are  the  elder  brothers  who  cast  you 
out. 

And  now  a  cause  has  arisen,  a  need,  a  momentous 
issue,  in  which  we  as  a  nation,  both  those  who  cast  your 
fathers  out  and  those  who  comforted  your  fathers  and 
remained  in  England  fighting  for  the  same  causes  as 
they,  are  constrained  to  appeal  to  you  as  brothers.  Not 
necessarily  for  military  help !  Do  not  imagine  that.  So 
far  as  we  can  see,  we  have  full  confidence  in  ourselves 
and  our  allies.  But  we  appeal  to  you,  first  of  all,  to 
understand  us.  It  is  intolerable  to  us,  intolerable  for  all 
the  future  hope  of  humanity,  that  this  our  testimony  of 
blood,  this  our  martyrdom  for  a  cause  which  we  hold 
sacred,  should  be  regarded  by  you,  our  friends  and 
brothers  across  the  Atlantic,  as  a  mere  quarrel  of  angry 
dogs  over  a  bone.  We  have  made  our  appeal  and  a  large 
part  of  America  has  responded  magnificently,  with  that 
swiftness  of  brain,  that  ready  sympathy  and  generosity, 
which  are  so  characteristically  American.  I  know  no 
better  statements  on  the  diplomatic  causes  of  the  war, 
at  any  rate  among  neutral  nations,  than  some  of  those 
that  were  published  quite  early  in  the  Eastern  States. 
But  other  parts  of  your  nation  had  gone  too  far  off  to 


174  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

hear  us.  They  had  built  up  their  own  life  too  independ- 
ently to  care  about  our  troubles.  I  believe  also  that  the 
very  magnitude  of  the  cause  at  issue  makes  it  difficult 
for  us  to  explain  and  for  them  to  understand.  How  shall 
we  try  to  state  that  cause,  to  put  into  words,  however 
imperfect,  the  centre  of  our  profound  feeling?  It  is  a 
difficult  task. 

"  Government  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  for  the 
people"?  That  is  a  principle  which  Americans  have  paid 
for  with  their  blood  and  which  they  understand  with 
every  fibre  of  their  being.  But  is  it  exactly  democracy 
for  which  we  are  fighting?  The  Republic  of  France,  the 
limited  monarchy  of  England,  and  the  autocracy  of 
Russia?  We  sometimes  say,  and  feel,  that  we  are  fight- 
ing for  democracy,  and  in  a  sense  it  is  true;  but  democ- 
racy alone  cannot  be  the  exact  definition  of  our  cause. 

Is  it,  then,  a  fight  for  civilization  against  barbarism? 
The  thesis  is  difficult  to  maintain.  In  material  civiliza- 
tion, at  least,  Germany  is  actually  our  superior.  The 
organization  of  German  trade,  of  railways,  of  schools, 
even  of  things  intellectual,  seems,  at  least  to  a  super- 
ficial glance,  to  be  the  acme  of  civilization.  To  speak  of 
the  Germans  as  barbarians  may  in  some  profounder 
sense  have  truth  in  it,  but  in  the  ordinary  meaning  of  the 
words  it  is  a  paradox. 

Some  people  again  have  tried  to  tell  the  Americans 
that  we  were  fighting  for  Christianity  against  Godless- 
ness,  but  that  is  not,  as  it  stands,  a  very  persuasive 
statement.  They  can  point  to  many  saintly  lives  in 
Germany;  the  bookshelves  of  their  professors  of  divin- 
ity are  loaded  with  German  books  of  devotion  and  theol- 
ogy; and  I  hardly  imagine  that  we  and  our  French  allies 
make  quite  the  impression  of  a  nation  of  early  Christians. 


AMERICA  AND  ENGLAND  175 

None  of  these  statements  seems  exactly  adequate, 
yet  there  is  some  profound  truth  underlying  all  of  them. 
I  do  not  suppose  that  my  own  definition  will  stand  crit- 
icism much  better  than  these  I  have  mentioned,  but  I 
will  venture  to  put  to  you  the  way  in  which  the  issue 
strikes  me.  You  remember  the  old  philosophical  doc- 
trine of  the  "Social  Contract"  as  the  origin  of  ordered 
society;  that  men  lived  in  a  " state  of  nature,"  with  no 
laws,  no  duties  to  one  another,  no  relationships  — 
homo  homini  lupus,  "every  man  a  wolf  to  every  other 
man";  and  then,  finding  that  condition  intolerable,  they 
met  together  and  made  a  "contract,"  and  hence  arose 
civilized  society.  And  you  will  remember  the  criticism 
passed  on  the  doctrine  by  such  philosophers  as  T.  H. 
Green :  the  criticism  that  beings  in  that  supposed  con- 
dition could  not  even  begin  to  make  a  contract;  that 
before  any  contract  can  be  made,  there  must  be  some  ele- 
mentary sense  of  relationship,  of  mutual  duty,  some  ele- 
mentary instinct  of  public  right.  Before  any  contract  is 
possible,  there  must  be  at  least  the  elementary  under- 
standing that  if  a  man  pledges  his  word,  he  should  keep 
it.  It  is  that  primary  understanding,  that  elementary 
sense  of  brotherhood  or  of  public  right,  which  it  seems 
to  us  the  present  Government  of  Germany  in  its  dealing 
with  foreign  nations  has  sought  to  stamp  out  of  exist- 
ence. It  has  rejected,  in  the  words  of  the  King's  Speech, 
"the  old  ordinance  which  has  held  civilized  Europe  to- 
gether." It  has  acted  on  a  new  ordinance  that  every 
nation  shall  be  a  wolf  to  its  neighbour. 

Do  you  find  that  indictment  hard  to  believe  of  such  a 
nation  as  Germany?  I  think  we  can  see  how  it  came 
about.  Germany  is  the  great  country  of  specialization. 
Above  all  she  has  produced  the  specialized  soldier;  not 


176  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

the  human  soldier,  the  Christian  soldier,  the  chivalrous 
soldier,  or  the  soldier  with  the  sense  of  civic  duties;  but 
the  soldier  who  is  trained  to  be  a  soldier  and  nothing 
else,  to  disregard  all  the  rest  of  human  relations,  to  see 
all  his  country's  neighbours  merely  as  enemies  to  be 
duped  and  conquered,  to  treat  all  life  according  to  some 
system  of  perverted  biology  as  a  mere  struggle  of  force 
and  fraud.  They  have  created  this  type  of  soldier,  able, 
concentrated,  conscienceless,  and  remorseless,  and  then 
—  what  no  other  people  in  the  world  has  done  —  they 
have  given  the  nation  over  to  his  guidance.  Of  course 
we  all  have  armies.  We  all  have  experts  and  strategists. 
But  with  the  rest  of  us  the  soldier  is  the  last  resort,  like 
the  executioner.  We  call  him  up  only  when  all  other 
means  have  failed.  But  in  Germany  the  soldier  is  al- 
ways present.  He  is  behind  the  diplomatist,  behind  the 
educator,  behind  the  preacher;  he  is  behind  the  philoso- 
pher in  his  study  and  the  man  of  science  in  his  labora- 
tory; always  present  and  always  in  authority.  In  other 
nations  the  sword  is  the  servant  of  the  public  welfare,  a 
savage  servant  never  used  but  in  the  last  necessity;  in 
Germany  all  the  resources  of  the  nation  are  the  servants 
of  the  sword. 

How  far  can  America  be  brought  to  see  this  or  in 
general  to  understand  our  cause?  Roughly  speaking,  I 
think  it  would  be  true  to  say  that  the  most  instructed 
part  of  America — New  York,  Boston,  and  the  Eastern 
States  —  understood  early.  They  understood  rapidly 
and  acutely  and  they  responded  generously.  The  rest  of 
America  is  gradually  learning  to  understand.  I  met,  in 
my  recent  visit  to  the  United  States,  two  men,  both  ex- 
ceptionally good  witnesses  and  of  different  sides  in  home 


AMERICA  AND  ENGLAND  177 

politics,  who  had  journeyed  right  across  the  continent 
about  a  year  ago  and  again  recently;  and  they  both  made 
the  same  report:  that  the  knowledge  and  the  feeling  of 
the  comparatively  small  part  of  America  which  under- 
stands and  studies  European  affairs  were  spreading 
steadily  from  East  to  West.  They  had  reached  much 
farther  this  year  than  a  year  ago. 

The  position  of  our  cause  in  America  is  not  unsatis- 
factory. Both  the  Presidential  candidates,  as  I  have 
said,  understand  it.  In  speaking  of  them,  whether  they 
differ  from  us  or  not,  no  one  would  have  to  explain 
things  from  the  beginning.  Again,  in  the  recent  election, 
though  naturally  neither  party  actually  turned  away 
votes  that  offered  themselves,  there  was  no  party  which 
would  dare  openly  to  admit  that  it  was  pro-German, 
cnly  a  small,  disorganized  faction  on  both  sides.  I  think 
we  may  also  say  that  such  points  of  difference  as  we 
have  had  with  the  United  States  during  the  war  —  and 
such  points  of  difference  are  absolutely  bound  to  arise 
—  have  been  treated  by  the  Government  and  the  ma- 
jority of  the  people  of  the  United  States,  I  will  not  say 
with  any  special  indulgence  towards  us,  but  at  least  in 
a  spirit  of  great  fairness  and  neighbourly  good-will.  Of 
course  America  will  not  fight.  What  nation  in  history 
ever  did  fight  from  motives  of  pure  philanthropy  and 
sympathy  in  a  war  four  thousand  miles  away?  Of  course 
America  will  not  fight  —  unless,  that  is,  the  war  should 
take  some  new  and  unexpected  turn  directly  menacing 
her  interests.  But  in  many  ways  America  can  help 
or  hinder  us  in  the  war;  and  especially  it  is  America 
more  than  any  other  nation  which  will  register  the 
opinion  of  the  neutral  world.  We  believe  that  we 
and  our  allies  can  show  that  militarism  is  a  failure: 


178  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

we  want  America  to  pronounce  judgement  that  it  is 
w  irked. 

Instructed  America  is  already  overwhelmingly  with 
us.  The  great  interest  of  the  present  situation  is  that 
by  the  issue  of  the  Presidential  election  it  is  uninstructed 
America  that  is  now  largely  in  power.  (When  I  say  "in- 
structed" and  "uninstructed,"  I  mean,  of  course,  "in- 
structed" and  "uninstructed"  as  regards  European 
affairs.)  President  Wilson  has,  of  course,  abundant 
knowledge  and  imagination;  it  is  easy  enough  to  state 
our  case  to  him.  But  the  great  masses  behind  him,  the 
masses  of  the  South  and  West,  are  drawn  precisely  from 
the  most  non-European  part  of  America,  the  part  that 
neither  knows  about  us  nor  wishes  to  know.  It  is  to 
those  great  masses  of  the  South  and  West  that  we  have 
somehow  to  make  ourselves  understood.  Many  of  you 
now  present  know  them  better  than  I  do,  but  even  I 
have  known  a  good  many.  They  will  honestly  try,  I  be- 
lieve, to  understand  us.  They  will  bring  to  the  task, 
perhaps,  some  an ti- British  prejudices;  certainly  abun- 
dant ignorance  —  as  abundant  and  profound  as  our  own 
ignorance  of  the  affairs  of  Minnesota  and  Wyoming. 
They  will  bring  some  lack  of  experience,  some  lack  of 
tradition  in  that  delicate  tact  combined  with  firmness, 
that  self-restraint,  that  respect  for  foreign  nations,  that 
power  of  seeing  another's  point  of  view,  which  is  es- 
sential to  a  sound  foreign  policy.  But  they  will  bring 
also  quickness  of  mind,  indomitable  vigour,  real  Ameri- 
can generosity,  and  a  most  abundant  store  of  good-will. 
I  do  not  think  there  is  any  nation  on  the  earth  which 
contains  so  large  a  proportion  as  America  of  people  who 
really  and  actively  wish  to  do  right  —  and  to  feel  good 
afterwards.   It  is  to  these  people  that  we  must  appeal, 


AMERICA  AND  ENGLAND  179 

not  for  help  in  war,  nor  for  any  immediate  alliance,  but 
for  two  purposes.  We  must  appeal  to  them,  first,  merely 
to  listen  and  think  and  understand ;  and  secondly,  when 
they  have  realized  what  we  are  fighting  for  during  the 
war,  to  work  for  common  ends  with  us  after  the  peace. 
I  will  not  wait  now  to  define  these  ends;  they  have  been 
stated  by  Mr.  Asquith  and  Lord  Grey.  I  do  not  know 
exactly  what  form  it  may  prove  best  for  America's  co- 
operation to  take.  For  my  own  part,  I  follow  Lord 
Bryce  and  Lord  Grey,  Mr.  Taft,  Mr.  Wilson,  and  Mr. 
Hughes,  as  a  devout  believer  in  a  league  to  enforce 
peace.  America  has  made  that  proposal,  and  Lord  Grey 
speaking  for  the  Allies  has  announced  that  we  are 
in  favour  of  it.  The  exact  form  and  machinery  of  the 
league  must,  of  course,  remain  to  be  settled  hereafter. 
But  I  do  not  think  it  will  be  exactly  that  league  spoken  of 
by  Dr.  Bethmann-Hollweg,  of  which  Germany  "is  quite 
willing  to  put  herself  at  the  head" ;  nor  do  I  imagine  that 
its  first  object  will  be  "to  guarantee  Germany  from 
another  invasion  by  Belgium." 

The  truth  is  —  and  this  will  be  one  of  our  difficulties 
—  that  between  us  and  America,  as  between  every  bel- 
ligerent and  every  neutral,  there  is  one  great  gulf  to 
bridge.  Most  neutrals  —  and  especially  these  West- 
erners of  whom  I  spoke  —  move  inside  a  certain  normal 
range  of  ideas.  They  understand  the  goodness  of  being 
sober,  honest,  thrifty,  kind,  —  extraordinarily  kind,  — 
and  even  religious.  They  praise  and  admire  —  and  even 
practise  —  the  virtues  which  lie  within  the  normal  range 
of  experience,  that  range  within  which  to  lose  one's  life 
is  the  greatest  of  misfortunes  and  to  take  another's  life 
the  greatest  of  crimes.  But  we  in  Great  Britain  have  got 
beyond  those  barriers.   We  have  become  familiar  with 


180  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

the  knowledge  that  there  are  things  in  life  which  are 
greater  than  life.  We  have  learnt,  more  than  we  ever 
learnt  before,  that  the  true  work  of  mankind  upon  earth 
is  to  live  for  these  greater  things.  I  am  not  exaggerat- 
ing or  using  high-falutin  language.  Go  out  into  the 
street  and  talk  with  the  first  bus-driver  or  cabman  who 
has  lost  his  son  in  the  war;  he  may  be  inarticulate,  but 
if  once  he  begins  to  speak  freely,  you  will  find  him  telling 
you  that  he  does  not  grudge  his  son's  life. 

We  stand  outside  the  barriers  that  I  have  spoken  of, 
and  our  words  and  gestures  must  seem  strange  to  those 
within,  but  it  is  to  them  that  we  must  explain  ourselves. 
A  picture  rises  to  my  mind  as  I  am  now  speaking  to 
you,  a  picture  of  New  England  as  I  motored  through  it 
a  few  months  ago :  the  pretty,  prosperous  country  towns; 
the  workmen's  settlements,  especially  in  the  evening 
when  the  men  come  back  from  work  and  the  children 
from  school ;  the  refreshment  rooms  at  the  big  railway  sta- 
tions, full  of  fruit  and  coolness,  with  no  smell  of  alcohol 
in  the  air  and  no  tang  of  alcohol  in  the  conversation  be- 
tween the  customers  and  the  waitresses;  the  whole  at- 
mosphere clean,  healthy,  and  lighthearted,  an  atmosphere 
of  fairly  hard  work  and  abundant  prosperity.  How 
can  any  foreigner — how  dare  any  foreigner — ask  that 
they  should  change  that  for  the  life  which  we  are  now 
leading? 

I  remember  just  before  starting  on  that  drive  hearing 
by  telegram  that  two  of  my  intimate  friends  were  killed, 
and  on  the  ship  I  heard  of  two  more.  At  Liverpool  I 
remember  the  curious  shabbiness  of  the  streets  and 
houses,  as  if  all  repainting  and  decorating  were  being  put 
off  until  after  the  war.  At  Carlisle  the  mass  of  tense, 
overworked  munition  workers;  the  papers  full,  as  they 


AMERICA  AND  ENGLAND  181 

are  now,  of  some  two-thousand-odd  daily  casualties.  I 
remember  the  impression  then  made  upon  me  by  the 
slow  steps  and  somewhat  haggard  faces  of  ordinary  men 
and  women  in  the  British  streets.  No;  we  cannot  ask 
the  Americans  to  stand  in  our  shoes;  but  I  would  like 
them  to  know,  and  fully  realize,  that,  by  Heaven,  we 
would  not  stand  in  theirs,  nor  in  any  others  than  our 
own !  When  I  realize  most  fully  the  burden  we  are  bear- 
ing, the  ordeal  of  fire  through  which  we  are  resolved  to 
pass,  I  am  not  only  proud  of  my  country,  I  thank  God 
that,  if  this  awful  evil  was  to  fall  upon  humanity,  — 
this  awful  evil  to  avert  another  yet  more  awful,  —  that 
our  country  was  called  upon  to  stand  in  the  very  van  of 
battle  and  of  suffering,  and  that  we  have  not  flinched 
from  our  task.  We  are  the  sailors  in  the  ship  of  human- 
ity, the  sailors  and  the  engineers.  We  may  yet  be  swept 
off  the  deck;  we  may  be  crushed  or  stifled  in  the  engine- 
room;  but  at  least  we  are  not  mere  passengers  and  we 
are  not  spectators. 

To  Western  Americans,  perhaps  to  all  neutrals,  the 
horrors  of  war  so  utterly  outweigh  all  the  other  elements 
that  it  seems  to  be  nothing  but  horror.  That  is,  perhaps, 
the  sane  view,  and  our  own  feeling  may  have  a  touch  of 
the  insane  about  it,  but  I  am  sure  that  it  has  also  a  touch 
of  the  prof ounder  truth.  A  friend  and  pupil  of  mine  wrote 
to  me  the  other  day  about  the  Somme  battles,  and  how 
they  had  made  him  feel  the  difference  between  soul  and 
body;  how  the  body  of  man  seemed  a  weak  and  poor 
thing,  which  he  had  seen  torn  to  rags  all  about  him  and 
trodden  into  mud,  and  the  soul  of  man  something  mag- 
nificent and  indomitable,  greater  than  he  had  ever  con- 
ceived. When  we  talk  like  that,  you  neutrals  sometimes 
shudder  at  us  and  feel  as  if  we  were  possessed  by  an  evil 


182  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

spirit.  No.  The  spirit  may  be  dangerous,  but  it  is  not 
evil.  Go  about  England  to-day  and  you  will  find  in 
every  town  men  and  women  whose  hearts  are  broken, 
but  who  are  uplifted  by  a  new  spiritual  strength.  They 
know  that  there  are  issues  greater  than  life,  and  that  for 
these  issues,  if  it  is  well  to  die,  it  is  also  well  to  suffer. 
And  there  is  one  mistake,  a  mere  mistake  in  psychology, 
which  I  would  urge  you  not  to  commit.  Do  not  confuse 
war  with  hatred.  The  people  who  feel  this  spiritual 
exaltation  are  exactly  those  whose  hearts  have  not  room 
for  hatred.  The  soldiers  fighting  do  not  hate  as  a  rule; 
and  the  people  who  feel  greatly  do  not  hate.  It  is  mostly 
those  who  are  somehow  baffled  and  unable  to  help,  or 
are  brooding  over  personal  wrongs,  that  give  way  to  ha- 
tred. I  remember  reading  in  a  New  England  farmhouse  a 
curious  document,  the  will  of  an  old  Southerner  made  in 
1866,  in  which,  since  he  had  lost  everything  in  the  Civil 
War,  he  bequeathed  to  his  children  and  grandchildren: 
"The  bitter  hatred  and  everlasting  malignity  of  my 
heart  against  all  Yankees,  meaning  by  that  term  all  who 
live  north  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line."  What  a  strange 
ghost  of  the  past  that  now  seems!  How  the  moss  has 
grown  over  those  old  stones  that  once  were  burning 
lava !  And  even  he  was  not  a  soldier  of  the  war,  but  an 
old  man  and  a  non-combatant;  otherwise  he  would  not 
have  been  so  bitter.  I  would  like  our  neutral  and  pacific 
friends  to  realize,  first,  that,  as  Lord  Bryce  has  said,  in 
our  normal  days  we  are  as  peaceful  a  nation  as  them- 
selves; and  secondly,  that  now,  when  war  has  become 
our  duty,  the  more  we  feel  the  cause  for  which  we  are 
fighting  and  are  uplifted  in  spirit  by  the  need  of  deter- 
mination and  of  sacrifice,  the  less  room  there  is  in  our 
minds  for  the  mean  feelings  of  spite  or  hate  or  revenge. 


AMERICA  AND  ENGLAND  183 

It  rests  with  men  themselves  to  turn  this  appalling  ex- 
perience into  spiritual  good  or  evil.  There  are  influences 
enough,  God  knows,  pulling  in  the  evil  direction;  they 
are  published  every  morning  and  evening.  But  the 
Government,  the  more  thoughtful  men  and  the  central 
mind  of  the  nation,  are,  I  believe,  keeping  tenaciously 
to  the  higher  and  more  permanent  ideals.  If  that  is  done, 
we  may  win  from  this  war,  as  from  some  great  Aris- 
totelian tragedy,  a  "purification  wrought  by  pity  and 
by  fear." 


XI 

THE  SEA  POLICY  OF  GREAT  BRITAIN 

(October,  1916) 

An  article  in  the  " Atlantic  Monthly"  for  October  by 
Mr.  Arthur  Bullard  has  set  me  thinking.  It  was  hard 
to  classify.  It  was  not  exactly  pro-German.  Most  of  its 
general  sentiments  were  unexceptionable.  It  did  not 
seem  to  be  written  in  bad  faith.  Yet  it  was  full  of  sneers 
and  accusations  against  Great  Britain  which  almost  any 
candid  reader,  who  knew  the  facts,  must  see  to  be  un- 
fair. I  did  not  know  what  to  make  of  Mr.  Bullard  till  at 
last  there  came  across  my  mind  an  old  description  of  a 
certain  type,  the  second-best  type,  of  legendary  Scotch 
minister:  "In  doctrine  not  vera  ootstanding,  but  a 
deevil  on  the  moralities!" 

Mr.  Bullard's  general  doctrine  is  fair  enough.  There 
have  been  two  types  of  foreign  policy  in  Great  Britain, 
one  typified,  if  you  like,  by  Lord  North  or  Castlereagh 
or  Disraeli,  a  type  which  concentrated  on  its  country's 
interests  and  accepted  the  ordinary  diplomatic  tradi- 
tions of  Old- World  Europe;  the  other  typified  by  Fox, 
Gladstone,  Campbell-Bannerman,  Bryce,  which  set  be- 
fore itself  an  ideal  of  righteousness  and  even  of  unself- 
ishness in  international  politics.  Both  parties  made 
their  mistakes;  but  on  the  whole  the  Liberal  movement 
in  British  foreign  policy  is  generally  felt  to  point  in  the 
right  direction,  and  its  record  forms  certainly  a  glorious 
page  in  the  general  history  of  civilization.  Mr.  Bullard, 


THE  SEA  POLICY  OF  GREAT  BRITAIN     185 

speaking  as  an  enlightened  American,  is  prepared  to  be- 
friend, or  at  least  to  praise,  Great  Britain  if  she  walks  in 
Liberal  paths,  but  intends  to  denounce  her  if  she  follows 
after  Lord  North.  For  example:  he  denounces  the  policy 
of  the  Boer  War,  but  he  praises  warmly  the  settlement 
which  followed  it  in  1906  under  the  guidance  of  Camp- 
bell-Bannerman,  Asquith,  and  Sir  Edward  Grey.  "The 
granting  of  self-government  to  the  defeated  Boers  will 
always  rank  as  one  of  the  finest  achievements  in  politi- 
cal history."  This  is  all  sound  Liberalism,  and  I  accept 
every  word  of  it. 

There  is  nothing  peculiar,  then,  about  Mr.  Bullard's 
doctrine ;  it  is  only  when  he  applies  it  that  one  discovers 
his  true  "  deevilishness  on  the  moralities.' '  His  method 
is  to  ask  at  once  more  than  human  nature  can  be  ex- 
pected to  give,  and  then  pour  out  a  whole  commina- 
tion  service  of  anathemas  when  his  demands  are  not 
complied  with.  He  begins,  as  it  were,  by  saying  that 
all  he  expects  of  Mr.  X in  order  to  love  him  is  com- 
mon honesty  and  truthfulness:  we  all  agree  and  are  edi- 
fied. Then  it  appears  that  Mr.  X once  said  he  was 

out  when  he  was  really  at  home  and  busy.  The  scoun- 
drel! A  convicted  liar,  a  man  who  has  used  the  God- 
given  privilege  of  speech  for  the  darkening  of  knowl- 
edge! How  can  Mr.  Bullard  possibly  be  friends  with 
such  a  man? 

To  take  one  small  but  significant  point  first.  Mr. 
Bullard,  like  most  people,  sees  the  need  of  continuity  in 
foreign  policy,  and  the  great  objections  to  a  system  in 
which  a  new  Government,  or  even  a  new  influence  at 
Court,  may  upset  a  nation's  course.  But  he  does  not 
see  that  such  continuity  implies  some  sort  of  compro- 
mise.   A  continuous  foreign  policy  in  a  country  gov- 


186  FAITH,  WAR,  AND   POLICY 

erned  alternately  by  Foxites  and  Northites  is  possible 
only  if  both  parties  abate  their  extreme  pretensions.  And 
Mr.  Billiard,  if  I  read  him  aright,  expects  it  to  be  con- 
tinuous Fox.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  we  have  had  lately 
a  continuous  foreign  policy  in  Great  Britain,  because 
Grey,  while  moving  always  as  best  he  could  towards  arbi- 
tration, equity,  and  a  ''cordial  understanding"  with  all 
Powers  who  would  agree  to  it,  was  felt  also  to  be  keenly 
alive  to  his  duties  as  the  steward  of  a  great  inheritance. 

But  let  me  begin,  as  an  Englishman,  by  seeing  what 
Mr.  Bullard  thinks  of  us.  We  have  apparently  started 
by  "a  wholesale  repudiation  of  legal  restraints."  We 
have  "decided  that  there  is  to  be  no  sea  law."  Con- 
sequently we  have  "alienated  neutral  sympathy  more 
gradually,  but  more  surely,  than  the  Germans."  And 
this  alienation,  we  are  led  to  suppose,  is  not  mainly  be- 
cause of  any  selfish  annoyance  on  the  part  of  neutrals 
whose  interests  are  crossed;  it  is  just  their  high-minded 
disapproval  of  wickedness.  They  are  all  just  as  "deevil- 
ish  on  the  moralities"  as  Mr.  Bullard  is.  Naturally, 
however,  they  dislike  our  "brusque  denial  that  nations 
with  smaller  navies  have  any  voice  in  defining  the  law." 
"The  Sea-Lords  have  decided  what  they  would  like  to 
do,  and  His  Majesty's  Privy  Council  has  announced  that 
that  is  the  law."  In  English  opinion  and  action  "Might 
makes  Right"  —  this  phrase  is  constantly  repeated. 
We  are  always  "hitting  below  the  belt."  And  lastly 
and  most  explicitly,  "The  scrap  of  paper  on  which  Great 
Britain  had  promised  fair  play  at  sea  is  torn  up!" 

I  leave  out  certain  passing  accusations  of  hypocrisy 
and  proceed  to  examine  the  grounds  for  this  invective. 

"The  scrap  of  paper  on  which  Great  Britain  had 
promised  fair  play  at  sea  is  torn  up."  By  the  "scrap  of 


THE  SEA  POLICY  OF  GREAT  BRITAIN    187 

paper"  Mr.  Bullard  means  the  Declaration  of  London; 
a:.id  he  knows  perfectly  well  that  the  Declaration  of  Lon- 
don was  never  passed  into  law,  never  accepted  either  by- 
Great  Britain  or  by  any  other  nation.  It  is  simply  un- 
true to  say  that  we  promised  to  observe  the  Declara- 
tion, or  that  that  document  has  in  any  way  been  violated, 
since  it  never  was  law.  Mr.  Bullard  himself  gives  most 
of  the  facts;  so  it  is  apparently  just  for  fun,  or  in  the  joy 
of  rhetoric,  that  he  writes  such  nonsense  as  this. 

The  Declaration  of  London  was  an  attempt  to  codify 
and  improve  the  traditional  rules  of  warfare  at  sea, 
which  have  always  been  very  fluctuating  and  uncertain. 
It  was  due  largely  to  Sir  Edward  Grey.  He  summoned 
the  chief  maritime  nations  to  a  conference  on  the  sub- 
ject in  December,  1908;  the  conference  sat  for  less  than 
three  months,  and  in  February,  1909,  made  a  report 
which  was  embodied  in  the  Declaration  of  London.  It 
was  greatly  discussed  and  eventually  rejected  in  the 
British  Parliament.  It  was  not,  I  believe,  even  proposed 
anywhere  else.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Declaration  did 
not  fully  satisfy  any  one.  It  was  certainly  a  move  in  the 
right  direction,  but  there  were  two  large  objections  to 
it.  First,  many  international  lawyers  —  Professor  Hol- 
land was  one  of  them  — considered  that  it  had  been 
drawn  too  hastily  and  was  not  a  satisfactory  legal  code. 
Secondly,  its  desirability  or  undesirability  depended 
partly  on  certain  large  political  problems  which  were 
obscure  in  1909.  They  are  anything  but  obscure  now. 

To  take  one  point  only,  the  one  that  specially  affected 
Great  Britain.  We  were  then  in  the  midst  of  our  long 
negotiations  with  Germany  for  a  reduction  of  arma- 
ments and  a  cessation  of  naval  rivalry.  The  Liberal 
policy  was,  in  general,  to  conciliate  Germany  by  every 


188  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

possible  concession  that  could  be  made  without  fatally 
weakening  ourselves  or  betraying  the  rest  of  Europe. 
For  example,  we  deliberately  kept  our  army  very  small, 
to  prove  that  we  intended  no  aggression.  On  the  other 
hand,  we  could  not  give  up  our  naval  superiority  be- 
cause we  are  an  island  power;  and,  if  we  were  once  de- 
feated at  sea  and  blockaded,  we  could  all  be  starved  to 
death  or  submission  in  a  few  weeks.  The  Germans,  on 
the  other  hand,  objected  to  our  naval  superiority  on  a 
number  of  vague  or  inadmissible  grounds  (e.g.,  that 
"the  German  eagle  was  lame  of  one  wing  so  long  as  her 
fleet  was  not  as  powerful  among  other  fleets  as  her  army 
among  other  armies"),  and  on  one  that  had  some 
shadow  of  reason.  They  objected  to  having  their  very 
large  mercantile  marine  at  the  mercy  of  Great  Britain 
in  case  of  war.  Consequently  it  was  worth  our  while,  if 
we  could  thereby  avoid  war  and  secure  good  relations 
with  Germany,  both  to  abandon  the  right  of  prize  and, 
in  general,  to  cut  down  the  rights  of  a  power  command- 
ing the  seas  in  such  matters  as  blockade  and  contraband. 
(When  I  say  "  rights,"  I  mean  practices  claimed  as  rights 
by  ourselves  and  others  when  in  command  of  the  sea 
during  war,  though  often  disputed  or  denied  by  other 
Powers,  or  by  the  same  Powers  in  a  different  situation.) 
That  is,  we,  as  the  Power  commanding  the  seas,  were 
arranging  to  give  up  certain  traditional  advantages  for 
the  sake  of  getting  a  better  code  of  sea  law  universally 
recognized,  and  in  particular  for  the  sake  of  insuring  the 
good-will  of  Germany.  What  happened?  In  the  first 
place,  the  proposed  code  turned  out  to  be  unsatisfactory 
and  was  not  adopted  by  any  single  nation.  In  the  second 
place,  instead  of  responding  to  our  overtures  of  good-will, 
Germany  sprang  suddenly  at  the  throat  of  Belgium  and 


THE  SEA  POLICY  OF  GREAT  BRITAIN    189 

France  and  drove  us  into  war.  And  Mr.  Bullard  coolly 
assumes  that  we  ought  to  put  in  practice  against  our- 
selves, in  war,  the  code  which  no  nation  had  adopted  and 
which  had  been  meant  as  a  concession  to  avoid  war !  And 
not  only  that.  I  can  conceive  a  sort  of  visionary,  like 
Edward  Carpenter,  arguing  that  such  an  angelic  ex- 
ample would  have  softened  the  heart  of  all  nations  and 
made  them  hasten  —  I  will  not  say  to  help  us,  but  at 
least  to  write  us  some  most  flattering  obituary  notices. 
But  Mr.  Bullard  takes  quite  another  line.  He  thinks 
we  are  thieves  and  scoundrels  and  tearers-up  of  treaties, 
because  we  did  not  so  penalize  ourselves ! 

What  we  did  was  to  announce  at  the  beginning  of  the 
war,  as  a  guide  to  other  nations,  that,  though  we  did 
not,  of  course,  accept  it  as  a  code,  we  should  in  general 
and  with  some  deductions  follow  the  lines  of  the  Declara- 
tion. This  seems  to  Mr.  Bullard  worse  than  nothing:  it 
seems  to  me  about  the  best  thing  that  could  be  done  in 
the  circumstances. 

But  here  Mr.  Bullard  has  a  very  cunning  point  to 
make.  It  has  been  made  also  by  Professor  Liszt.  He 
knows  and  admits  that  the  Declaration  was  never  rati- 
fied and  had  no  legal  force.  But  he  points  out  that,  both 
in  inviting  the  other  nations  to  the  conference  and  in  rec- 
ommending the  Declaration  when  it  had  been  framed, 
authoritative  persons  explained  that  the  purpose  of  the 
whole  proceeding  was  "not  to  legislate,  but  to  codify." 
"  We  obtained  recognition  of  the  fact/'  says  Lord  Desart, 
"that,  as  a  body,  these  rules  do  amount  practically  to  a 
statement  of  what  is  the  essence  of  the  law  of  nations." 

Consequently,  argues  Mr.  Bullard,  to  repudiate  the 
Declaration,  even  if  it  was  never  ratified,  is  to  repudiate 
the  essence  of  the  law  of  nations. 


190  FAITH,  WAR,  AND   POLICY 

A  clever  piece  of  trick  argument.  What  is  the  answer 
to  it?  (1)  A  very  simple  point.  Mr.  Bullard,  following 
Professor  Liszt,  does  not  give  the  whole  of  Lord  Desart's 
sentence,  but  stops  in  the  middle  of  a  phrase,  where  there 
is  not  even  a  comma!  The  whole  phrase  is,  " amount 
practically  to  a  statement  of  what  is  the  essence  of  the 
law  of  nations  properly  applicable  to  the  questions  at 
issue  under  present-day  conditions  of  international  com- 
merce and  warfare."  That  is,  (a)  it  is  admitted  that  the 
existing  rules  do  not  cover  the  questions  at  issue  under 
present-day  conditions;  and  therefore  (6)  the  conference 
has  done  its  best  to  apply  the  essence  of  the  law  of 
nations  to  the  solution  of  these  new  questions.  Lord 
Desart  thought  the  attempt  was  successful,  and  that 
the  conference  really  had  produced  what  was  "prac- 
tically" a  statement  of  the  essence  of  the  old  law  as  ap- 
plied to  the  new  problems.  This  view  was  not  accepted 
by  the  British  Parliament,  nor  apparently  by  any  other, 
since  they  did  not  ratify  the  Declaration. 

(2)  Codification  without  alteration  is  really  an  im- 
possible achievement.  Every  person  of  experience  knows 
that  you  cannot  codify  a  large  mass  of  floating  customs 
and  divergent  laws  without,  by  that  very  fact,  intro- 
ducing changes.  I  doubt  if  there  has  ever  been  any  large 
work  of  codification  accomplished,  which  was  not  both 
recommended  to  its  admirers  as  being  a  great  reform, 
and  defended  against  its  opponents  on  the  ground  that  it 
was  a  mere  registration  of  existing  practice.  Every  great 
codification  creates  new  law. 

(3)  The  Declaration  is  specially  recommended  by  its 
authors  as  being  a  compromise.  The  claims  and  customs 
of  different  nations  conflict;  each  one  yields  here  and  is 
recompensed  there.  The  best  statement  perhaps  of  the 


THE  SEA  POLICY  OF  GREAT  BRITAIN    191 

work  of  the  conference  is  contained  in  the  General  Re- 
port of  its  Drafting  Committee :  — 

"The  solutions  have  been  extracted  from  the  various 
views  or  practices  which  prevail,  and  represent  what 
may  be  called  the  media  sententia.  They  are  not  always 
in  absolute  agreement  with  the  views  peculiar  to  each 
country,  but  they  shock  the  essential  ideas  of  none.  They 
must  not  be  examined  separately,  but  as  a  whole,  other- 
wise there  is  a  risk  of  the  most  serious  misunderstand- 
ings. In  fact,  if  one  or  more  isolated  rules  are  examined, 
either  from  the  belligerent  or  the  neutral  point  of  view, 
the  reader  may  find  that  the  interests  with  which  he  is 
especially  concerned  are  jeopardized  by  the  adoption  of 
these  rules.  But  they  have  another  side.  The  work  is 
one  of  compromise  and  mutual  concessions.  Is  it  as  a 
whole  a  good  one?" 

Thus,  the  Declaration  is  not  a  mere  declaration  of  the 
existing  law  of  nations.  It  is  a  compromise  in  which  dif- 
ferent parties  make  concessions,  in  response  to  other 
concessions  which  are  made  to  them.  And  Mr.  Bullard 
expects  Great  Britain,  when  suddenly  involved  in  war 
with  the  most  terrible  enemy  known  to  history,  to  make 
gratuitously  all  the  concessions  contained  in  the  pro- 
posed compromise,  and  leave  it  to  chance,  or  to  the 
mercy  of  the  Germans,  whether  she  should  get  any  of 
the  compensations!  And  concessions,  too,  which  her 
Parliament  had  considered  excessive  in  peace  time,  even 
with  the  compensations  guaranteed! 

What,  then,  is  left  if  the  Declaration  of  London  is  not 
accepted?  Is  there  to  be  no  law  of  the  sea  at  all?  What 
is  left  is  exactly  all  that  there  was  before  the  sittings  of 
that  conference,  plus  a  certain  extra  lucidity  in  places 
due  to  its  reports.    The  British  courts  simply  continue 


192  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

to  administer  international  law  on  the  basis  of  precedent 
adapted  to  new  conditions,  exactly  as  all  Powers  in  the 
world  have  done.  This  offends  Mr.  Bullard,  but  I  find 
it  difficult  to  make  out  what  other  course  he  would  rec- 
ommend. 

To  establish  an  international  court  ad  hoc,  in  the  mid- 
dle of  the  war,  and  ask  it  to  settle  the  new  questions  as 
they  arise?  To  submit  all  cases  to  the  neutral  Powers, 
with  all  the  small  European  neutrals  terrified  of  offend- 
ing their  big  military  neighbours?  Refer  all  questions  to 
the  United  States  alone?  Call  another  conference  to 
revise  the  Declaration  of  London,  and  keep  all  prizes 
waiting  till  it  reported?  I  doubt  if  any  of  these  courses 
would  please  many  people.  There  may  be  some  course 
which  would  have  been  better  than  the  normal  one,  but 
it  certainly  is  not  obvious  to  the  ordinary  eye.  And  it 
seems  a  little  hard  to  denounce  the  British  Government 
as  lawless  tyrants,  justly  hated  by  the  world,  because 
they  do  not  pursue  a  better  method  of  settling  prize 
cases  than  any  one  has  yet  practised,  or  perhaps  even 
devised. 

So  much  for  general  principles;  let  us  now  consider 
whether  in  detailed  practice  the  claims  of  the  British 
Government  or  the  practice  of  the  British  courts  has 
been  particularly  reprehensible.  The  two  questions  are, 
of  course,  distinct;  and  my  own  impression,  given  merely 
for  what  it  may  be  worth,  is  that  the  decisions  of  the 
courts  will  bear  the  severest  scrutiny,  while  the  claims 
of  the  Government  are  closely  analogous  to  the  claims 
advanced  by  all  Governments  in  a  similar  situation. 
They  will  compare  not  unfavorably,  for  instance,  with 
the  claims  of  the  United  States  in  the  Civil  War.    It 


THE  SEA  POLICY  OF  GREAT  BRITAIN    193 

should  also  be  noticed  that  Great  Britain  does  not  act 
alone;  and  as  compared  with  the  precedents  laid  down 
by  various  nations  in  previous  wars,  a  policy  agreed 
upon  by  six  of  the  most  important  maritime  Powers  in 
the  world  has  at  least  a  slightly  higher  claim  to  validity 
than  one  laid  down  by  a  single  Power.  Mr.  Bullard,  in 
one  extremely  high-principled  passage,  explains  that 
the  United  States  could  not  in  conscience  join  the  Allies 
in  this  war  because  that  would  be  fighting  in  order  "to 
make  British  convenience  the  rule  of  the  seas."  But 
here  his  moral  feelings  have  evidently  intoxicated  him. 
It  is  obvious  that,  if  the  United  States  had  cared  to 
come  in,  —  which  I  am  not  for  a  moment  urging,  —  the 
law  of  the  seas  would,  at  the  very  worst,  have  been  inter- 
preted, not  for  the  convenience  of  Great  Britain  alone, 
but  for  the  convenience  of  Great  Britain,  France,  Italy, 
Russia,  Portugal,  Japan,  and  the  United  States. 

But  let  us  consider  the  particular  enormities  which 
England  is  supposed  to  have  committed.  And  let  us  be 
clear  about  the  issue.  I  do  not  contend  that  we  have 
never  stretched  in  our  favour  the  vague  body  of  unwrit- 
ten rules,  based  on  conflicting  precedents  and  unenforced 
by  normal  sanctions,  which  is  called  international  law. 
Every  belligerent  in  every  war  hitherto  has  done  so;  and 
that  not  always  from  national  selfishness  alone.  Inter- 
national law,  apart  from  the  fundamental  misfortune 
of  having  at  present  no  sanction  behind  it,  suffers  from 
two  great  weaknesses.  It  is  not  for  the  most  part  framed 
on  clear  principles,  and  certainly  has  not  been  built  up  in 
times  of  peace  by  "calm  thought  and  discussion";  it  has 
mostly  been  built  up  by  precedents  and  protests  and 
compromises  based  on  immediate  pressure.  In  the  sec- 
ond place,  the  body  of  precedents  is  very  scanty  com- 


194  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

pared  with  the  importance  of  the  interests  involved.  It 
is  not  like  the  English  common  law,  so  rich  in  recorded 
precedents  that  almost  any  conceivable  new  complica- 
tion between  litigant  interests  can  be  solved  by  analogy 
with  some  past  judgement.  Every  new  war  gives  birth 
to  new  problems  and  complications  which  are  not  cov- 
ered by  any  precedents  in  previous  wars,  and  have  to 
be  settled  by  very  imperfect  analogies  or  by  the  violent 
stretching  of  some  previous  rule.  But  the  present  war 
differs  from  all  its  predecessors  to  a  quite  unusual  degree, 
both  because  of  its  own  vast  scale  and  the  new  methods 
of  warfare  it  has  introduced,  and  because  the  whole 
structure  of  the  world  has  been  transformed  since  the 
last  great  body  of  available  precedents.  What  would  be 
the  condition  of  private  commercial  law  at  the  present 
day  if  it  had  nothing  to  go  upon  but  one  or  two  prec- 
edents in  1870,  a  few  more  from  the  time  of  the  Ameri- 
can Civil  War,  and  a  good  number  between  1790  and 
1815? 

Our  first  great  offence  is  our  extension  of  the  doctrine 
of  "continuous  voyage."  This  doctrine  was  first  ap- 
plied on  a  large  scale  by  the  Government  of  the  United 
States  during  the  Civil  War;  it  was  an  extension  of  pre- 
vious belligerent  rights,  was  discussed  by  Great  Britain 
and  other  Powers,  and  finally  accepted  as  legitimate. 
The  point  is  a  simple  one.  By  the  old  rule  a  belligerent 
has  a  right  to  prevent  certain  ships  and  cargoes  from 
going  to  the  enemy;  he  has  no  right  to  prevent  their  go- 
ing to  a  neutral  port.  But  suppose  he  finds  them  going 
to  a  neutral  port  from  which  the  cargoes  are  to  be  taken 
straight  on  by  a  protected  road  to  the  enemy?  What  is 
the  rule  to  be?  The  United  States  argued  that  the  goods 
were  really  on  a  " continuous  voyage"  or  a  process  of 


THE  SEA  POLICY  OF  GREAT  BRITAIN    195 

"continuous  transportation"  to  the  enemy,  and  could 
therefore  be  treated  just  as  if  they  were  going  direct  to 
the  enemy  port.  This  argument  was  generally  accepted 
by  publicists,  notably  by  Bluntschli.  It  was  accepted 
by  the  International  Commission  which  sat  in  pursu- 
ance to  the  treaty  made  at  Washington  on  May  8,  1871 ; 
and  it  was  acted  upon  in  the  South  African  War,  when 
stores  shipped  to  Delagoa  Bay  and  clearly  intended  for 
Pretoria  were  treated  as  contraband. 

In  the  present  war  the  extension  became  inevitably 
far  wider.  Germany's  own  ports  are  closed ;  she  proceeds 
to  import  whatever  she  needs  by  way  of  Copenhagen 
or  the  Dutch  ports.  We  assert  the  doctrine  of  "con- 
tinuous voyage"  and  treat  all  contraband  goods  shipped 
for  Copenhagen,  but  obviously  intended  for  German 
use,  just  as  if  they  were  shipped  for  Hamburg.  Let  me 
first  illustrate  this  point,  and  then  deal  with  a  difficulty 
that  arises. 

The  cases  of  four  ships,  the  Kim,  Alfred  Nobel,  Bjorn- 
stjerne  Bjornson,  and  Friedland,  were  considered  be- 
tween July  and  September,  1915,  when  judgement  was 
given  on  all  four  together.  The  cargoes  had  been  seized 
and  there  were  numerous  claims  against  the  British 
Government  for  compensation.  Some  of  these  were  al- 
lowed by  the  High  Court  on  various  grounds,  but  most 
were  rejected.  The  main  facts  were  as  follows :  Certain 
exporters,  mostly  American,  sent  to  Copenhagen  enor- 
mous quantities  of  lard  and  "fat  backs,"  which  were 
in  great  demand  in  Germany.  They  contain  glycerine, 
which  is  the  basis  of  various  explosives.  There  is  no 
beast  so  charged  with  potential  explosive  as  a  fat  hog. 
More  lard  was  thus  sent  to  Copenhagen  in  three  weeks 
than  had  entered  the  whole  of  Denmark  in  the  previous 


196  FAITH,  WAR,  AND^POLICY 

eight  years.  There  are  differences  of  detail  in  the  various 
transactions,  but  one  company,  for  instance,  consigned 
its  goods  to  an  anonymous  agent  in  Copenhagen,  who 
had  no  address  beyond  a  hotel  where  he  happened  to  be 
staying  and  who  proved  to  be  their  permanent  represen- 
tative in  Hamburg.  The  company  a  little  later  received 
a  telegram  from  this  Hamburg  agent  saying,  "  Don't 
ship  lard  Copenhagen,  export  prohibited"  (that  is,  ex- 
port to  Germany  was  prohibited  by  the  Danish  Govern- 
ment). In  other  cases  there  were  misleading  descrip- 
tions of  goods  and  deceptive  consignments.  There  was 
not  the  remotest  possibility  of  question  that  the  "fat 
backs"  and  lard  were  in  the  main  meant  for  German 
explosives.  Our  High  Court  gave  the  benefit  of  the  doubt 
to  those  claimants  whose  case  seemed  really  doubtful. 

So  far  can  any  one  blame  us?  Can  any  reasonable 
person  argue  that  Germany  ought,  by  international  law, 
to  be  free  to  import  all  the  explosives  she  likes,  under 
the  nose  of  the  Allied  fleets,  by  simply  making  them 
land  at  Copenhagen  instead  of  at  Hamburg? 

But  now  difficulties  begin.  I  will  not  spend  time  on 
the  curious  argument  that  "  continuous  voyage,"  though 
it  applies  to  absolute  contraband,  should  not  apply  to 
conditional  contraband.  A  compromise  on  these  lines 
had  been  proposed  in  the  Declaration  of  London,  but  is 
obviously  illogical.  Neither  will  I  discuss  the  point, 
dear  to  technical  lawyers,  that  the  doctrine  of  "contin- 
uous voyage,"  though  sound  for  contraband,  perhaps 
does  not  apply  to  blockade,  on  the  ground  that  the  cargo 
may  continue  its  journey  by  land  and  a  blockade  by 
land  is  not  a  blockade,  but  a  siege.  Such  an  objection, 
if  correct,  can  hardly  be  said  to  "apply  the  essence  of 
international  law  to  present-day  questions." 


THE  SEA  POLICY  OF  GREAT  BRITAIN     197 

The  real  difficulties  of  the  situation  lay  in  sifting  the 
goods  intended  for  Germany  from  the  bona-fide  imports 
of  Denmark  and  the  other  border  countries.  Denmark, 
Holland,  Switzerland,  Norway,  Sweden,  all  had  their 
normal  needs.  They  used  butter  and  dynamite  and  rub- 
ber and  copper  and  lard  and  "fat  backs"  themselves, 
and  we  had  no  right,  and  certainly  no  wish,  to  interfere 
with  them.  What  were  we  to  do?  Were  we  to  examine 
every  ship  and  sift  the  whole  of  her  cargo?  That  would 
involve  immense  labour,  infinite  waste  of  time,  and  the 
certainty  of  many  mistakes.  We  discussed  with  the  vari- 
ous parties  concerned  all  kinds  of  arrangements  by  which 
our  legitimate  suppression  of  supplies  to  the  enemy 
might  be  carried  out  with  the  minimum  of  inconvenience 
to  neutrals.  The  exact  arrangements  vary  in  different 
countries  and  none  can  be  entirely  without  friction, 
though,  of  course,  our  natural  object  is  to  reduce  friction 
to  a  minimum.  I  only  wish  I  could  make  Mr.  Bullard 
realize  the  enormous  amount  of  work  and  ingenuity 
which  our  officials  devote  to  the  task  of  preventing 
incidental  injustices  and  appeasing  injured  suscepti- 
bilities. 

The  main  methods  are  twofold:  (1)  We  invite  those 
merchants  and  corporations  in  neutral  countries  who 
are  importing  goods  bona  fide  for  their  own  country's 
consumption,  and  not  for  reexport  to  our  enemies,  to 
sign  an  agreement  to  that  effect.  In  most  countries 
there  is  a  large  union  or  trust  which  has  collectively 
made  such  an  undertaking,  and  which  endeavours  to 
prevent  breaches  of  the  agreement  by  its  members. 
(2)  We  try  to  ascertain  the  bona-fide  imports  of  each 
country  by  taking  the  average  imports  of  some  ten 
previous  years,  and  allowing  some  extra  amount  — 


198  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

varying  in  different  cases  —  to  replace  such  imports 
from  enemy  countries  as  may  have  disappeared.  If 
these  averages  are  greatly  exceeded,  —  and  they  some- 
tin  ies  have  multiplied  themselves  by  ten  or  twelve,  — 
we  become  suspicious,  make  further  searches,  and  gen- 
erally find  some  enterprising  smugglers  who  have  broken 
their  undertaking  to  us  and  are  consequently  added  to  a 
black  list.  They  are  people  who  prefer  to  supply  the 
enemy;  and  we  do  not  willingly,  in  war  time,  allow  peo- 
ple to  supply  the  enemy,  any  more  than  the  enemy, 
when  he  can  help  it,  allows  them  to  supply  us. 

These  two  methods  applied  in  conjunction  are  the 
best  instruments  that  we  have  discovered  for  carrying 
out  without  undue  friction  our  necessary,  although 
somewhat  oppressive,  task.  The  war  does  impose  on 
neutrals  a  considerable  amount  of  hardship;  there  is 
no  use  denying  it.  And  the  enormous  opportunities  for 
money-making  which  it  also  affords  to  a  good  number 
of  traders  in  each  country  are  only  a  poor  excuse  for  the 
general  inconvenience.  Still,  I  doubt  if  much  improve- 
ment is  reasonably  possible  upon  these  measures  which 
u  Great  Britain  in  concert  with  all  her  Allies  M  has  taken 
to  prevent  trading  with  the  enemy  through  our  lines,  so 
long  as  neutral  States  meet  us  in  a  neutral  and  con- 
ciliatory spirit.  When  they  do  not,  of  course  there  is 
trouble.  The  absolute  refusal  of  the  Swedish  Govern- 
ment to  sanction  any  agreement  for  the  purpose  of  de- 
termining what  imports  were  going  to  the  enemy  and 
what  not,  has  led  to  much  friction  and  mutual  reprisals. 
And  similarly  in  Greece,  the  perpetual  series  of  frauds 
and  secret  hostilities  which  have  followed  the  King's 
unconstitutional  dismissal  of  Venizelos,  his  trick  upon 
us  at  Salonica,  and  his  breach  of  treaty  with  our  ally 


THE  SEA  POLICY  OF  GREAT  BRITAIN     199 

Serbia,  have  produced  a  policy  of  pressure  on  the  part  of 
the  Allies,  which  can  be  justified  only  as  preferable  to 
actual  war.  For  there  is  no  doubt  that  from  the  original 
breach  of  treaty  onward  the  Greek  Government  has 
provided  us  with  abundant  casus  belli.  But  these  painful 
controversies  are  not  the  result  of  our  trade  policy:  they 
are  incidents  of  natural  friction  with  Germanizing  courts 
or  governments.  But  Mr.  Bullard  is  for  some  strange 
reason  speechless  with  horror  over  the  first  of  our  in- 
struments. It  seems  to  him  a  "humiliating  surrender  of 
sovereignty "  that  the  Dutch  Government  should  sanc- 
tion the  existence  of  the  Overseas  Trust,  which  under- 
takes, so  far  as  overseas  imports  are  concerned,  to  trade 
only  with  one  side  in  the  war.  I  cannot  see  where 
"  sovereignty  "  comes  in.  It  is  a  purely  business  arrange- 
ment, by  which  certain  firms  who  want  for  themselves 
goods  passing  through  the  hands  of  one  belligerent, 
undertake,  if  they  receive  the  goods,  not  to  hand  them 
on  to  the  other. 

I  pass  to  a  real  difficulty,  where  I  do  not  feel  at  all  sure 
that  our  policy  was  wise,  though  on  the  whole  the  bal- 
ance of  well-informed  opinion  seems  to  approve  of  it. 
I  mean  the  so-called  total  " blockade' '  of  Germany,  in- 
cluding the  shutting-out  of  foodstuffs.  The  history  of 
this  policy  is  as  follows :  — 

On  February  4,  1915,  the  Germans  announced  that 
all  the  seas  round  Great  Britain  were  a  "war  area"  in 
which  they  would  sink  without  warning  all  ships  what- 
soever. (Neutrals  might  be  spared  on  occasion,  but  could 
not  complain  if  they  were  sunk.)  This  was  a  proposed 
blockade  by  submarine,  which  has  hitherto  proved  to  be 
impracticable.    If  Germany  had  commanded  the  seas 


200  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

she  would,  of  course,  have  proclaimed  a  real  blockade 
and  prevented  any  ship  from  reaching  Great  Britain. 

Now,  we  made  no  objection  to  the  enemy's  wishing 
to  blockade  us.  We  objected  to  the  submarine  blockade 
on  its  own  special  demerits,  because  it  could  not  be,  or 
at  any  rate  was  not,  carried  out  with  any  respect  for 
humanity.  A  regular  blockade  may  be  compared  with 
putting  a  line  of  policemen  across  a  street  to  turn  back 
intruders.  The  submarine  blockade  was  as  though  a 
man,  having  no  police  at  his  disposal,  were  to  make  oc- 
casional dashes  into  the  street  with  a  revolver  and  shoot 
passers-by.  But  this  point  need  not  be  laboured,  since 
American  opinion  was  quite  in  agreement  with  ours. 
The  point  to  consider  is  the  retort  that  we  made. 

Up  to  February  we  had  allowed,  not  only  foodstuffs, 
but  important  articles  for  munition-making,  like  cotton, 
to  proceed  freely  to  Germany.  On  February  4  Germany 
announced  that  no  ship  would  be  allowed  to  sail  to  or 
from  Great  Britain,  and  that  all  our  shipping,  including 
even  fishing-boats,  would  be  sunk  at  sea  by  submarines. 
We  replied  on  March  11  that,  if  they  chose  to  put  the 
war  on  that  footing,  we  took  up  the  challenge.  After  a 
certain  date  we  would  allow  no  ship  to  carry  goods  to  or 
from  Germany,  and,  as  for  their  murderous  submarines, 
our  fishermen  should  have  arms  and  fight  them.  The 
submarine  war  has  been  at  times  extremely  dangerous 
to  us,  and  may  be  so  again ;  but,  so  far  as  we  can  at  pres- 
ent judge,  we  have  won  it.  By  unheard-of  efforts  of  dar- 
ing and  invention  our  seafaring  men  have  baffled  and 
destroyed  the  submarines,  and  we  have  turned  the  tables 
of  the  blockade  completely  against  the  enemy. 

Our  action,  however,  has  been  criticized  on  several 
grounds.    (1)  On  grounds  of  international  law.   Here  I 


THE  SEA  POLICY  OF  GREAT  BRITAIN     201 

must  stand  aside  and  leave  the  lawyers  to  speak.  It  is 
no  part  of  my  case  to  argue  that  in  all  the  innumerable 
controversies  produced  by  the  war  England  has  always 
been  technically  in  the  right.  But  it  seems  pretty  clear 
that  in  this  matter  a  condition  has  arisen  which  has  no 
precedent  in  previous  wars  and  is  not  covered  by  any  of 
the  existing  rules.  If  our  action  is  to  be  described  as  a 
"  blockade,"  there  has  certainly  never  been  any  blockade 
like  it  before,  either  in  vastness  of  scale  or,  I  think,  in 
efficiency,  or  in  the  leniency  with  which  it  is  exercised. 
Neither  has  any  Government  of  a  belligerent  nation  be- 
fore commandeered  all  foodstuffs  for  its  own  use,  as  Ger- 
many has,  and  thus  brought  them  under  the  category  of 
contraband.  Nor  again,  so  far  as  I  know,  has  there  been 
a  parallel  to  the  curious  position  in  the  Baltic,  where  our 
command  of  the  sea  suddenly  ceases,  not  from  any  lack 
of  strength  or  vigilance  on  our  part,  but  because  the  neu- 
tral Powers  who  own  the  narrow  entrances  to  the  Baltic 
have  closed  them  to  our  warships.  We  seem  here  again 
to  be  creating  a  precedent,  but  not,  I  think,  a  precedent 
that  is  repugnant  to  the  "essence  of  international  law 
properly  applicable  to  questions  at  issue  under  present- 
day  conditions."  Mr.  Asquith  seems  to  have  accepted 
some  such  view  when  he  explained  that  our  policy  was 
to  exclude  supplies  from  Germany,  and  at  the  same  time 
refused  to  use  the  term  " blockade"  in  order  "not  to  be 
entangled  in  legal  subtleties."  The  gravest  objection  to 
the  whole  policy  is,  no  doubt,  the  hardship  which  it  in- 
flicts on  neutrals.  All  blockading,  all  stopping  of  contra- 
band, all  interference  with  shipping,  inflicts  hardship  on 
neutrals;  and  the  immense  scale  of  the  Allied  operations 
in  this  world-war  makes  the  total  hardship  inflicted  very 
large. 


202  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

I  sometimes  doubt  whether  the  Allies  would  have 
taken  this  drastic  step  had  they  not  felt  that,  on  the 
main  issue  of  the  war,  neutral  feeling  was  so  overwhelm- 
ingly on  our  side  that  it  would  probably  accept  a  good 
deal  of  inconvenience  in  order  to  have  the  war  finished 
more  rapidly  and  successfully.  And  I  do  think  that  the 
general  attitude  of  most  neutral  nations,  and  most  es- 
pecially of  America,  has  shown  a  high  standard  of  gen- 
erosity and  of  what  I  may  call  "world-patriotism." 

(2)  Secondly,  on  grounds  of  humanity.  We  are  said 
to  be  "starving  the  women  and  children  of  Germany." 
The  answer  is,  first,  that  such  a  blockade  is  a  normal 
measure  of  war  in  all  sieges  and  was  practised,  for  ex- 
ample, by  the  Germans  in  the  siege  of  Paris.  It  has  al- 
ways been  understood  that  the  siege  process  would  be 
applied  to  Great  Britain  by  any  enemy  who  should  com- 
mand the  sea.  It  was  attempted  by  Napoleon,  and  it  has 
been  applied  already  by  Germany,  though  with  com- 
plete lack  of  success.  We  are  doing  to  Germany  what 
they  are  trying  to  do  to  us.  Secondly,  while  we  are  a  na- 
tion vitally  dependent  on  sea-borne  imports  for  our 
food,  Germany  is  almost  completely  self-supporting. 
She  can  live  for  an  indefinite  time  on  her  own  produce; 
and  the  most  that  our  " blockade"  can  do  is  to  make  life 
less  comfortable  and  the  supplying  of  the  army  vastly 
more  difficult.  No  human  being  in  Germany  need  starve 
because  of  our  "blockade." 

There  is  a  further  development  of  this  argument  which 
causes  many  people,  myself  included,  grave  searchings 
of  heart.  It  is  connected  with  the  treatment  of  conquered 
territories,  such  as  Poland,  Serbia,  and,  to  a  lesser  degree, 
Belgium.  By  every  canon  of  law  and  humanity,  as  well 
as  by  the  express  stipulations  of  the  Hague  Convention, 


THE  SEA  POLICY  OF  GREAT  BRITAIN     203 

a  nation  which  holds  conquered  territory  assumes  serious 
responsibilities  towards  the  inhabitants.  All  these  the 
German  Government  has  repudiated.  It  appears  certain 
that  the  German  Government  has  not  only  destroyed 
during  its  military  operations  practically  all  the  food- 
supplies  of  Serbia,  and  much  of  the  food-supplies  of 
Poland:  it  has  further,  during  its  occupation  of  those 
territories,  carried  off  into  Germany,  with  or  without 
pretext,  almost  all  the  food  that  remained  in  them.  It 
has  produced  famine  of  a  ghastly  description,  and  ex- 
cused itself  by  attributing  all  to  the  British  blockade. 

This  is  bad  enough,  but  worse  remains.  Appeals  were 
made  'to  us  to  do  for  Poland  and  Serbia  what  we  did  for 
Belgium :  to  admit  food  for  the  starving  natives  and,  of 
course,  also  contribute  to  the  food-fund  ourselves.  This 
we  were  willing  and  anxious  to  do  if  we  had  the  same 
guarantee  as  in  Belgium,  that  the  Germans  would  not 
take  the  food,  native  or  imported,  for  their  own  use. 
They  were  not  to  take  the  imported  food  themselves; 
nor  were  they  to  sweep  the  country  bare  of  all  the  na- 
tive-grown crops  and  cattle,  and  leave  us  to  support 
entirely  the  whole  population  of  their  conquered  prov- 
inces. To  the  surprise  of  most  people  concerned,  they 
refused  to  give  this  guarantee.  By  starving  these  terri- 
tories, it  appeared,  they  gained  two  advantages.  First, 
they  forced  large  numbers  of  Poles,  and  perhaps  a  few 
Serbs,  to  seek  work  in  Germany  and  set  free  so  many 
Germans  for  the  fighting  line.  Secondly,  they  could  use 
the  famine  to  stir  up  hatred  against  the  British.  Mr. 
Bullard  assures  us  that  even  in  America  the  starvation 
of  Poland  is  generally  attributed  to  our  blockade,  and  if 
writers  of  his  tone  have  much  influence  I  have  no  doubt 
that  what  he  says  is  true.  As  for  the  unfortunate  Poles 


204  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

themselves  in  their  misery  and  isolation,  who  can  tell 
what  they  believe? 

This  is  a  hideous  state  of  things,  and  if  our  blockade 
is  at  all  an  effective  element  in  causing  it,  I  would  be  in 
favour  of  dropping  the  blockade  forthwith.  But  it  does 
not  seem  to  be  so.  If  Germany  did  not  wish  to  starve 
these  people  she  need  not  do  it.  We  are  willing,  both  to 
admit  food  and  to  send  food,  so  long  as  she  will  promise 
not  to  steal  it.  If  it  be  argued  that  Germany  cannot  be 
expected  to  look  on  at  a  crowd  of  conquered  Poles  and 
Serbs  enjoying  themselves  while  good  sound  Germans 
are  short  of  pork  and  butter  and  bread,  the  answer  is 
that,  even  at  the  best,  we  should  hardly  be  able  to  bring 
the  food-supply  of  two  utterly  ravaged  and  devitalized 
countries,  like  Poland  and  Serbia,  to  a  level  approaching 
that  of  Germany.  Germany  is  living  on  her  own  re- 
sources and  those  of  her  allies,  true;  but  the  territories 
in  question  are  both  vast  and  fertile,  and  scarcely  the 
extreme  fringe  of  them  has  been  touched  by  the  war. 
On  the  whole,  it  does  not  look  as  if  Poland  or  Serbia 
would  appreciably  benefit  by  our  admission  of  food  to 
Germany. 

The  extension  of  the  doctrine  of  "  continuous  voyage," 
and  the  prevention  of  all  sea-borne  trade  to  or  from  Ger- 
many :  those  are  the  two  main  problems.  The  remainder 
are  smaller  things,  although  in  many  ways  interestiog 
and  important.  In  all  of  them,  I  think,  the  central  fact 
is  that  we  have  extended  some  existing  doctrine  of  inter- 
national law  to  meet  the  special  situations  produced  by 
this  war.  I  do  not  say  that  in  all  cases  we  have  decided 
rightly.  Sir  Edward  Grey  has  definitely  offered  to  sub- 
mit to  a  convention  after  the  war  the  whole  question  of 


THE  SEA  POLICY  OF  GREAT  BRITAIN     205 

what  is  called  "The  Freedom  of  the  Seas,"  and  such  a 
convention  will  probably  settle  some  of  these  points  in 
our  favour  and  some  against  us.  At  present  there  is  no 
convention  either  existing  or  possible.  There  is  no  fixed 
code  of  the  sea  and  never  has  been.  We  have  to  use  our 
own  tribunals,  which  administer  international  law  to  the 
best  of  their  ability  according  to  precedent.  They  have 
on  certain  occasions  decided  that  our  Government  has 
done  wrong  and  can  be  compelled  to  pay  damages;  they 
have  decided  that  certain  Orders  in  Council  were  against 
international  law  and  have  disallowed  them.  They  have, 
I  may  note  in  passing,  declined  to  admit  the  plea  of  the 
Crown  that  it  was  following  an  American  precedent 
which  was  afterwards  embodied  in  an  act  of  the  United 
States  Congress,  on  the  ground  that  the  said  precedent 
and  act  were  too  oppressive.  The  United  States  claimed 
that  the  Government  could  requisition  any  goods  or 
ships  which  had  been  captured  by  their  fleet,  without 
previous  trial.1  When  the  convention  comes  to  sit  on 
these  questions  which  we  have  tried  to  settle,  they  will 
probably,  as  I  said  before,  decide  some  for  and  some 
against  us;  but  I  am  confident  that  they  will  not  find 
that  our  courts  have  acted  with  either  levity  or  rapacity. 
I  mention  summarily  the  chief  remaining  points.  We 
treat  "bunker  coal  of  enemy  origin"  as  contraband;  and 
Mr.  Bullard  considers  this  as  absolutely  the  very  worst 
thing  we  have  done.  He  quotes  ancient  precedents  to 
show  that  "things  needful  for  the  working  of  the  ship  or 
comfort  of  the  crew  "  are  not  to  be  treated  as  contraband. 
But  the  rulings  in  question  all  date  from  before  the  time 
of  steam  and  refer  to  sailing  ships.  Coal  is  admittedly  in 

1  Judicial  Committee   of  Privy   Council,  in   the   Zamora  case, 
April  7,  1916. 


206  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

a  special  position,  and  international  law  has  not  yet 
pronounced  upon  it. 

Thus  far,  then,  our  "very  worst"  offence  is  not  so 
serious.  But  perhaps  it  is  our  motive  that  is  so  infamous? 
Our  motive  is  simple.  As  explained  above,  we  do  not 
allow  traders  to  carry  through  our  lines  goods  intended 
for  the  enemy,  and  we  ask  all  traders  for  an  assurance 
that  they  are  not  doing  so.  If  they  refuse  to  give  this 
assurance,  and  if  further  we  find  them  buying  enemy 
coal,  we  treat  them  as  if  they  had  been  buying  any  other 
enemy  goods.  What  does  the  enemy  do  to  ships  from 
England  or  Russia  in  the  Baltic?  And  do  we  ever  think 
of  complaining? 

We  examine  neutral  mails.  This  seems  a  bad  case.  We 
have  actually  a  rule  of  the  Hague  Convention  against  us, 
just  as  all  the  belligerents  have  —  or  have  only  just 
missed  having  —  in  the  matter  of  aeroplanes.  The  Con- 
vention maintains  the  inviolability  of  all  mail-bags,  and 
used  to  forbid  all  dropping  of  explosives  from  the  air. 
Yet  I  feel  some  confidence  that  any  future  conference 
will  recognize  that  both  those  rules  are  "  unemployable," 
and  will  justify  our  action  about  the  mails.  The  old 
precedents  do  not  apply  at  all.  There  has  never  been  in 
any  previous  war  anything  approaching  the  present  net- 
work of  commercial  and  political  correspondence  across 
the  Atlantic.  Suppose  in  the  Civil  War  there  had  been 
large  settlements  of  Confederates  in  Mexico  and  in 
Canada,  who  were  engaged  in  plots  against  the  United 
States?  Is  it  to  be  believed  that  President  Lincoln 
would  have  refrained  from  opening  the  captured  mail- 
bags  passing  between  Canada  and  Mexico?  A  German 
in  Denmark  or  Sweden  arranges  for  an  Indian  in  San 
Francisco  to  come  to  England  with  a  false  American 


THE  SEA  POLICY  OF  GREAT  BRITAIN     207 

passport  in  order  to  murder  Sir  Edward  Grey:  is  he  to 
have  the  right  of  sending  and  receiving  letters,  unhin- 
dered under  the  eyes  of  the  British  fleet  ?  Plots  about 
contraband  are,  of  course,  much  commoner.  Are  we  to 
be  allowed  to  search  ships  for  nickel  and  rubber,  but  for- 
bidden to  interfere  with  these  plotters'  mail-bags?  The 
rutes  and  the  precedents  of  other  wars  are  here  against 
us,  but  I  must  say  that  such  a  complete  change  in  condi- 
tions seems  absolutely  to  demand  a  change  of  rules. 

"  The  closing  the  Suez  Canal  to  neutrals  is  a  measure  for 
which  no  military  necessity  has  been  shown."  Mr.  Bullard 
does  not  seem  to  question  its  legality,  and  I  have  not 
tried  to  find  out  exactly  what  the  rights  of  either  Egypt 
or  Great  Britain  or  the  Suez  Canal  shareholders  may  be. 
But  as  for  the  military  necessity,  surely  a  child  can  see  it. 
To  block  the  Canal  would  be  worth  some  millions  of  dol- 
lars to  the  enemy.  A  much  smaller  sum  would  suffice  to 
induce  a  dozen  Greek,  or  Swedish,  or  even  unprejudiced 
Dutch,  skippers  to  play  certain  tricks  which  I  need  not 
name,  but  which  might  make  the  Canal  unusable  for 
several  weeks. 

Mr.  Bullard  ends  with  a  number  of  vaguely  prejudi- 
cial statements,  largely  in  the  form  of  innuendo  or  paren- 
thesis. He  seems  really  unable  to  understand  the  condi- 
tions produced  by  war.  He  says  we  regard  it  as  "moral 
for  neutrals  to  help  England  but  a  deadly  sin  to  trade 
with  Germany.' '  Of  course  it  has  nothing  to  do  with  sin. 
We  do  not  fire  at  German  men-of-war  because  we  think 
them  immoral,  but  because  they  are  our  enemies.  We 
do  not  confiscate  cargoes  of  rubber  consigned  to  Ger- 
many because  it  is  essentially  immoral  for  Germans  to 
use  rubber.  We  only  say  to  every  neutral  trader,  "If 
you  trade  with  Germany,  we  will  not  trade  with  you." 


208  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

Or  rather  that  is  the  extreme  limit  of  what  we  say.  The 
opposite  conduct  was  once  considered  possible,  but  seems 
to  us  of  the  present  generation  a  little  dishonourable.  It 
makes  us  a  little  ashamed  when  we  learn  that  Napoleon's 
armies  were  often  clad  in  cloth  from  Yorkshire  and  boots 
made  in  Northampton.  The  view  of  the  British  Gov- 
ernment at  that  time  was  that  it  was  good  business  to 
make  money  by  supplying  the  enemy  and  use  the  pro- 
ceeds for  defeating  him.  It  is  a  possible  view,  and  ap- 
parently is  the  view  that  appeals  to  Mr.  Bullard.  And 
doubtless  it  would  enable  both  ourselves  and  certain 
neutrals  to  make  more  money.  But  —  well,  we  do  not 
like  it,  and  do  not  believe  that  in  the  end  it  pays. 

And  then  the  article  tails  off  into  vague  horrors 
about  the  British  censorship  and  the  Defence  of  the 
Realm  Act  and  the  deplorable  profits  made  by  British 
shippers,  and  the  "  party  of  Lord  North  which  is  installed 
at  the  Foreign  Office"! 

Everybody  knows  that  in  war  censorship  is  neces- 
sary; every  nation  employs  it,  Great  Britain  rather  more 
leniently  than  the  rest.  It  is  a  pure  myth  to  suppose  that 
in  England  we  are  kept  in  the  dark  about  important 
sides  of  the  war  which  are  well  known  to  neutrals.  I  have 
been  in  four  different  neutral  countries  since  the  war 
began,  and  have  read  their  newspapers;  so  I  speak  with 
confidence.  But  it  is  just  the  sort  of  myth  that  Mr.  Bul- 
lard accepts  without  question.  As  to  the  Defence  of  the 
Realm  Act :  of  course  the  act  gives  the  Executive  tremen- 
dous powers  and  would,  if  continued  in  normal  times,  be 
incompatible  with  civil  liberty.  But  everybody  knows 
that  some  such  special  laws  are  necessary  in  war  time; 
there  is  no  nation  in  Europe  which  attempts  to  do  with- 


THE  SEA  POLICY  OF  GREAT  BRITAIN     209 

out  such  laws,  and  Mr.  Bullard  makes  no  attempt  to 
show  that  any  other  nation  applies  them  more  leniently 
than  England  does.  As  to  the  fortunes  made  by  ship- 
pers, why  drag  in  the  word  "British"?  With  the  Ger- 
man merchant  ships  out  of  use,  with  Allied  and  neutral 
ships  sunk  to  the  number  of  some  hundreds  by  sub- 
marines and  extensively  commandeered  by  the  various 
Governments  for  war  purposes,  there  is  an  extreme 
shortage  of  ships  together  with  an  immense  demand. 
Every  tub  that  will  float,  of  whatever  nationality,  is 
bringing  its  owner  fortune.  And  we  dare  not  discourage 
them,  for  we  want  every  ship  we  can  get.  Mr.  Bullard, 
dropping  for  a  moment  his  lofty  idealism,  complains 
simply  that  the  British  are  getting  too  large  a  share  of 
the  swag,  an  unproved  and  to  me  extremely  doubtful 
statement.  Naturally  ships  belonging  to  the  Allied 
Powers  are  less  open  to  suspicion  than  neutrals  are,  and 
consequently  are  less  harassed  by  certain  restrictions. 
But  the  British,  at  any  rate,  are  not  only  subjected  to 
enormous  war-taxation,  but  have  in  addition  fifty  per 
cent  of  their  war-profits  confiscated.  And  Lord  North 
at  the  Foreign  Office!  Really  one  smiles  at  Mr.  Bul- 
lard's  innocence.  "  The  visitor  thought  we  were  naughty, 
papa;  but  of  course  he  has  never  seen  us  when  we  are 
really  naughty ! "  In  every  country  engaged  in  war  there 
is  somewhere  below  the  surface  a  growling  mass  of  pas- 
sion, brutality,  lawlessness,  hatred  of  foreign  nations, 
contempt  for  reason  and  humanity.  In  Great  Britain, 
thank  Heaven,  the  brute  is  kept  cowed  and  well  chained, 
though  at  times  his  voice  is  heard  in  the  more  violent 
newspapers.  The  brute  knows  the  hands  that  hold  him 
down  and  hates  almost  all  the  present  Cabinet,  but 
most  of  all,  perhaps,  he  hates  two  men :  the  great  and 


210  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

moderate  Liberal  who  presides  over  the  Government, 
the  great  and  moderate  Liberal  who  guides  the  Foreign 
Office.  —  And  Mr.  Bullard,  in  his  innocence,  would  like 
to  turn  them  out! 

It  is  all  rather  pitiable.  Nothing  verified,  nothing 
exact,  nothing  impartially  stated,  not  much  that  is  even 
approximately  true.  Mr.  Bullard  seems  to  mean  well ;  I 
have  no  doubt  that  he  means  well.  But  his  present  tone 
will  not  serve  the  ends  of  Liberalism.  It  will  only  serve 
to  foster  prejudice,  to  make  bad  blood,  to  stir  up  that 
evil  old  spirit  of  slander  between  nations,  which  every 
decent  Liberal  and  certainly  every  good  internationalist 
would  like  to  see  buried  forever. 

It  is  false  to  say  that  Great  Britain  has  broken  the 
Declaration  of  London,  because  that  Declaration  was 
never  accepted  as  law.  It  is  false  to  say  that  Great  Brit- 
ain is  alone  responsible  for  every  unpopular  act  com- 
mitted at  sea  by  the  Allied  navies;  she  is  acting  in  con- 
cert with  nearly  all  the  great  maritime  Powers  of  the 
world.  It  is  idle  to  complain  that  Great  Britain  adminis- 
ters international  law  by  means  of  her  own  courts;  that 
is  the  only  method  ever  followed  by  other  belligerent  na- 
tions, the  United  States  included,  nor  has  any  better 
practical  method,  so  far  as  I  know,  been  even  proposed 
to  her.  And  lastly,  I  believe  it  is  profoundly  false  to  say 
that  the  British  courts  have  acted  in  heat  and  passion 
or  at  all  fallen  below  the  level  of  scrupulous  care  which 
is  expected  from  the  best  judicial  bodies  in  the  world. 

It  is  not  likely  that  their  decisions  are  in  every  case 
exactly  right.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  after  the  war,  if  we 
can  get  some  fair  security  of  future  peace  and  establish 
some  permanent  and  effective  international  tribunal,  we 
may  reach  a  definite  code  of  international  law  which  all 


THE  SEA  POLICY  OF  GREAT  BRITAIN     211 

nations  can  agree  to  uphold.  Whatever  meaning  there 
is  in  the  catch  phrase  "Freedom  of  the  Seas"  will  then 
come  up  for  serious  discussion,  and  Sir  Edward  Grey  has 
officially  announced  our  willingness  to  take  part  in  such 
discussion.  In  the  mean  time  the  great  group  of  Powers 
which  is,  as  Mr.  Bullard  admits,  on  the  whole  fighting  for 
the  maintenance  of  public  right  and  for  honesty  be- 
tween nations,  cannot  be  expected,  in  the  midst  of  its 
mortal  struggle,  to  divest  itself  of  its  normal  sources  of 
strength,  to  satisfy  an  ideal  which  has  never  been  de- 
manded of  other  belligerents. 

There  is  another  tale,  by  the  way,  about  that  minister 
who  was  such  "a  deevil  on  the  moralities.,,  He  once 
found  a  respectable  citizen  being  attacked  by  two  thieves. 
He  first  thought  of  helping  the  citizen,  but  eventually 
put  his  stick  between  the  man's  legs  and  tripped  him  up. 
"The  man  was  never  a  good  churchgoer/'  he  explained, 
"and  his  language  at  the  time  was  a  most  sinful  ex- 
ample." The  analogy  to  Mr.  Bullard  is  closer  than  I 
thought.  But  I  am  certain  that  he  does  not  speak  for  his 
countrymen. 


XII 

OXFORD  AND  THE  WAR1 

A  Memoir  of  Arthur  George  Heath,  Fellow  of 
New  College,  and  Lieutenant  in  the  Sixth 
Battalion,  Royal  West  Kent  Regiment 
(September,  1916) 

There  are  perhaps  no  institutions  in  England  whose 
response  to  the  requirements  of  the  war  has  been  more 
swift,  or  whose  sacrifice  more  intense  and  enduring,  than 
the  two  ancient  universities.  Not,  indeed,  that  it  is  very 
profitable  to  measure  the  comparative  sacrifices  of  those 
who  give  their  all.  If  these  two  mothers  gave  without 
hesitation,  so,  of  course,  did  many  others.  But  these  two 
had,  in  the  nature  of  things,  a  gift  to  offer  which  strikes 
the  onlooker  as  richer  than  most,  more  brilliant,  more 
pathetic,  more  inevitably  suggesting  the  idea,  by  all 
worldly  standards,  of  incalculable  and  heroic  waste. 

Men  of  many  kinds  and  many  different  natures  have 
gone  out  of  Oxford,  to  return  thither  only  as  a  memory 
and  an  inscribed  stone.  But  perhaps  the  two  classes  that 
have  most  touched  the  imagination  are  those  who  stand, 
from  the  academic  point  of  view,  at  the  extremities  of 
the  scale. 

On  one  side  the  more  or  less  idle  and  wealthy  men  to 
whom  the  university  had  been  something  nearer  to  an 
athletic  or  social  club  than  a  place  of  study,  and  w^ose 
lives  had  often  seemed  to  be  little  more  than  an  expres- 


OXFORD  AND  THE  WAR  213 

sion  of  irresponsible  youth,  if  not  a  mere  selfish  pursuit 
of  pleasure. 

It  was  a  surprise  to  many  of  us  to  see  how,  when  the 
need  came,  there  was  found  in  these  men  an  unsuspected 
strenuousness  and  gravity.  The  power,  it  would  seem, 
had  always  been  there;  but  to  call  it  forth  needed  a 
stronger  stimulus  than  the  ordinary  motives  of  well-to- 
do  English  life.  And  many  an  Oxford  teacher  must  have 
begun  to  revise  his  general  estimate  of  human  nature 
when  he  heard  the  later  history  of  various  undergrad- 
uates over  whom  he  had  hitherto  shrugged  despairing 
shoulders ;  what  hardships  they  faced  without  a  murmur, 
what  care  they  took  of  their  men's  health  and  comfort, 
how  they  had  shown  themselves  capable,  not  only  of 
dying  gallantly,  but  of  shouldering  grave  and  incessant 
responsibilities  without  a  lapse. 

And  at  the  other  end  of  the  scale  were  men  almost  the 
opposite  in  character:  students  selected  from  all  the 
schools  of  the  kingdom  for  their  intellectual  powers,  men 
whose  ideals  of  life  were  gentle,  to  whom  Oxford  was 
above  all  things  a  place  of  study  and  meditation,  where 
they  could  live  again  through  the  great  thoughts  of  past 
generations  and  draw  from  them  light  for  the  under- 
standing of  truth  or  help  for  the  bettering  of  human  life 
in  the  future. 

These  men,  unlike  the  first,  were  accustomed  normally 
to  live  for  their  duty,  and  their  duty  hitherto  had  lain 
along  quiet  and  rather  austere  paths.  It  had  led  them 
towards  industry  and  idealism  and  the  things  of  the  in- 
tellect; also,  no  doubt,  towards  the  ordinary  habits  of 
manliness  and  good  temper  which  make  life  in  a  com- 
munity pleasant.  Those  of  them  especially  who  had 
joined  the  tutorial  staff  of  some  college  had  it  as  a  large 


214  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

part  of  their  daily  business  to  think  for  others,  to  practice 
constant  sympathy  and  understanding,  to  be  the  friend  of 
every  pupil  who  came  to  them,  and  to  have  no  enemies. 
And  on  these  men  there  fell  suddenly  a  new  duty;  the 
same  as  the  old,  perhaps,  in  its  ultimate  justification, 
but  certainly  in  its  concrete  expression  the  most  violent 
opposite  of  all  they  had  hitherto  thought  right.  They 
were  called  abruptly  to  a  life  in  which  their  old  attain- 
ments and  virtues,  as  it  seemed,  were  not  wanted,  their 
standard  of  manners  somewhat  out  of  place,  their  gen- 
tleness and  modesty  almost  a  positive  disqualification; 
while  activities  were  suddenly  demanded  of  them  which 
they  had  never  practised  and  which,  for  all  any  one  knew, 
might  be  entirely  foreign  to  their  natures.  And  here, 
too,  there  came  to  the  onlooker  a  somewhat  awed  sur- 
prise, to  see  how  the  same  inward  power  which  had 
shaped  these  men's  previous  lives  was  ready  for  its  new 
task.  They  adapted  themselves.  They  found  how  to  use 
their  brains  in  a  field  that  was  strange  to  them.  They 
learnt  to  command  instead  of  persuading  or  suggesting, 
but  still  turned  their  experience  in  handling  pupils  and 
classes  to  advantage  for  the  leading  and  shaping  of  their 
platoons.  They  proved  themselves  able  to  endure  fa- 
tigues and  dangers  outside  all  the  range  of  their  previ- 
ous imagination,  and  even,  what  must  to  many  have 
been  a  more  profoundly  hateful  task,  to  study  carefully 
how  to  inflict  the  maximum  of  injury  upon  the  men  in 
the  trenches  opposite.  They  would  never  in  normal  life 
have  been  soldiers,  yet  they  brought  some  great  gifts  to 
their  soldiering.  After  all,  there  are  very  few  fields  of  life 
where  a  keen  intelligence  is  not  apt  to  be  useful,  or  where 
habits  of  duty  and  sympathy  and  understanding  are  not 
very  valuable  things. 


OXFORD  AND  THE  WAR  215 

It  was  to  this  class  that  Arthur  Heath  most  typically 
belonged;  and  in  trying  to  write  of  him  one  feels  how 
much  easier  it  would  be  to  describe  a  man  of  the  other 
type.  The  other  type  makes  such  an  obvious  picture; 
the  young  man  who  "cuts"  his  lectures  and  is  misun- 
derstood by  his  dons,  who  neglects  his  mere  books  be- 
cause his  heart  is  in  romance  or  adventure  or  thoughts 
of  war;  the  man  of  dominant  will  and  stormy  passions,  or 
of  reckless  daring  and  happy-go-lucky  lawlessness,  who 
is  always  in  trouble  till  he  rises  to  the  call  of  need  and 
becomes  a  hero.  The  Idle  Apprentice  always  forms  a 
better  picture  than  the  Industrious  Apprentice,  and  his 
life  is  more  interesting  to  read. 

To  make  a  man's  story  clear  one  needs  achievements, 
and  to  describe  him  vividly  one  seems  to  need  some 
characteristic  weaknesses.  But  the  men  of  whom  I  write 
were  very  young,  and  had  lived  so  far  a  life  with  little 
external  achievement,  only  the  achievements  of  high 
thinking  and  feeling,  of  quiet  tasks  well  done  and  gen- 
erous duties  well  carried  through :  a  life  with  plenty  in  it 
to  command  admiration  and  love,  but  nothing  to  make 
a  story  about.  And  as  for  characteristic  weaknesses,  I 
suppose  these  men  had  them,  being  human;  but  I  should 
find  it  hard  to  name  Arthur  Heath's  weaknesses,  and  they 
were  certainly  not  picturesque  enough  to  be  remem- 
bered. One  remembers  these  men  by  slight  things;  by  a 
smile,  a  look  of  the  eyes,  a  way  of  sitting  or  walking; 
by  a  sudden  feeling  about  some  chance  incident  —  "I 
should  like  to  talk  that  over  with  Heath,"  or,  "How 
Heath  would  have  laughed  at  that!"  But  such  things 
can  hardly  be  communicated,  any  more  than  the  sense 
of  loss  or  loneliness  can.  One  can  only  say:  these  young 
men  were  beautiful  spirits  and  of  high  promise;  they 


216  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

lived  a  sheltered  though  strenuous  life,  partly  devoted  to 
high  intellectual  studies  and  ideal  interests,  partly  to  that 
borderland  of  social  work  in  which  hard  thinking  and 
brotherly  love  go  hand  in  hand ;  then,  when  the  call  came, 
they  stepped  instantly  out  into  a  world  of  noise  and 
mire,  worked  and  laughed  and  suffered  with  their  fel- 
low men,  and,  like  them,  died  for  their  country. 

A  slight  story  in  any  case,  and  in  Arthur  Heath's  per- 
haps slighter  than  in  most.  The  mere  annals  of  his  life 
have  comparatively  little  interest.  As  is  said  by  one  who 
knew  him  especially  well,  they  are  summed  up  in  the 
phrase,  "Like  boy,  like  man."  It  is  a  singularly  uni- 
form story  of  quiet  industry  and  strength,  a  very  gen- 
tle, affectionate,  and  modest  nature,  extraordinary 
powers  of  intellect  and  a  rather  individual  but  irrepres- 
sible sense  of  humour. 

He  was  born  in  London  on  October  8,  1887,  and  was 
educated  at  the  Grocers'  Company's  School,  of  which  he 
always  spoke  very  highly,  and  which  certainly  seems  to 
have  had  the  power  of  turning  out  thoughtful  men.  He 
rose  through  the  various  forms  with  surprising  rapidity, 
excelling  at  almost  everything  he  touched.  He  was  very 
good  at  such  sports  as  running,  swimming,  and  shooting; 
he  delighted  in  natural  scenery  and  country  walks,  and 
he  showed  an  especial  gift  for  music.  In  December, 
1904,  he  obtained  an  Open  Classical  Scholarship  at  New 
College,  Oxford,  and  came  into  residence  in  October  of 
the  next  year.  It  so  happened  that  I  had  just  returned 
to  Oxford  and  New  College  myself  that  term,  after  an 
absence  of  sixteen  years,  and  was  told,  I  remember,  that 
I  should  have  two  particularly  good  pupils  to  teach  — 
the  senior  Winchester  Scholar,  Leslie  Hunter,  and  the 
Open  Scholar,  Heath,  from  some  London  school.  They 


OXFORD  AND  THE  WAR  217 

both  abundantly  justified  the  description.  They  ran 
each  other  close  for  the  great  university  distinctions,  re- 
mained friends  and  colleagues,  and  died  not  very  far 
apart  on  the  Western  front. 

I  remember  finding  Heath  waiting  in  my  study,  a 
slender,  delicately  made  freshman,  very  young-looking, 
dark,  with  regular  features  and  great  luminous  eyes; 
rather  silent  and  entirely  gentle  and  unassuming.  A 
freshman  from  a  London  school  is  apt  to  be  a  little  "out 
of  it "  at  first ;  he  is  surrounded  by  boys  from  Winchester, 
Eton,  Rugby,  and  the  other  great  public  schools,  who 
have  old  schoolfellows  by  the  score  scattered  about  the 
university,  and  whose  ordinary  habits  and  manners, 
virtues  and  weaknesses,  form  the  average  standard  of 
the  place.  Heath's  gentleness  immediately  inclined 
most  people  to  like  him,  while  his  brains  obviously  com- 
manded respect;  but  he  was  always  reserved  and  did  not 
quickly  become  well  known  in  college.  He  struck  one  in 
his  first  terms  as  living  an  intense  inner  life  of  watching 
and  thinking,  observing  and  weighing,  and  making  up 
his  mind  quietly  on  a  multitude  of  subjects,  while  quite 
refusing  to  be  bullied  or  hurried.  He  had  not  had  as  much 
training  in  Greek  and  Latin  composition  as  the  best  boys 
from  the  great  schools,  a  fact  which  just  prevented  him 
from  getting  the  two  blue-ribbons  of  scholarship,  the 
Hertford  and  Ireland.  But  he  came  second  for  both,  and 
obtained  a  Craven  Scholarship  in  1906  and  a  First  Class 
in  Moderations  in  1907  and  in  Greats  in  1909,  after  which 
he  was  immediately  elected  a  Fellow  of  New  College. 

Before  settling  down  to  his  teaching  work  he  travelled 
for  a  year  in  France  and  Germany,  attending  the  Uni- 
versities of  Paris  and  Berlin,  and  visiting  Leipzig, 
Munich,  Heidelberg,  and  other  places.    His  chief  in- 


218  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

terests  at  this  time,  apart  from  music,  were  philosophy 
and  social  reform.  He  had  expected  much  from  the 
French  Socialists  and  the  German  philosophers,  and  his 
letters  to  me  seem  to  show  that  both  expectations  were 
disappointed.  His  accounts  of  the  struggles  of  advanced 
French  politicians  are  more  amusing  than  respectful, 
and  he  could  not  find  the  relief  and  edification  that  Jean 
Christophe  found  in  the  religious  enthusiasm  of  the 
votaries  of  violence.  On  the  other  hand,  he  conceived 
both  respect  and  warm  affection  for  individual  French- 
men ;  he  was  keenly  interested  in  the  theatres,  and  greatly 
admired  the  work  of  certain  French  philosophers.  In 
Germany  his  experience  was  similar  to  that  of  so  many 
English  students.  He  was  disappointed  in  the  teaching 
of  the  universities,  though  he  rather  admired  the  actual 
lecturing.  He  was  quite  surprised  at  what  seemed  to 
him  the  decadence  of  German  philosophy.  He  thought 
that  its  highly  professional  and  technical  character  led 
its  professors  to  multiply  systems  and  interest  them- 
selves in  system-building  rather  than  to  look  freshly  at 
the  facts  they  had  to  study;  and  that  quite  often  some 
criticism  of  indurated  error  which  had  come  to  be  a 
commonplace  in  Oxford  was  unsuspected  or  hailed  as  a 
new  discovery  in  the  German  schools.  He  was  amused, 
too,  and  somewhat  bored  at  the  self-conscious  insistence 
on  German  Kultur,  with  which  his  ears  were  inun- 
dated; the  word  was  still  unfamiliar  to  most  English- 
men at  that  time.  And  he  wrote  me  a  serious  and  per- 
turbed warning,  as  to  a  fellow  friend  of  peace,  about  the 
anger  against  England  and  the  inclination  towards  war 
which  he  found  widespread  in  Germany.  Neither  he 
nor  I,  he  considered,  had  at  all  realized  the  strength  of 
these  feelings.   On  the  other  hand,  he  was  favourably 


OXFORD  AND  THE  WAR  219 

impressed  by  the  strength  and  discipline  of  the  German 
Socialists,  especially  in  the  south,  and  the  general  rea- 
sonableness of  their  political  action.  He  had  always 
loved  German  music,  and  he  revelled  in  the  mediaeval 
towns  and  the  vestiges  of  the  simple  life  of  old  Germany. 

When  he  returned  to  Oxford,  he  took  up  his  regular 
work  as  a  Greats  tutor,  lecturing  mostly  on  modern 
philosophy,  especially  on  various  branches  of  political 
speculation.  He  took,  on  the  one  hand,  such  subjects  as 
"Sensation,  Imagery,  and  Thought "  and  "The  Psy- 
chological Account  of  Knowledge";  and,  on  the  other, 
"Laissez  Faire,"  "Modern  Socialism,"  "Socialist  Criti- 
cisms and  Socialist  Remedies."  During  these  four  years 
he  was  building  up  a  great  position  of  quiet  influence  as 
a  tutor.  Good  pupils  are  apt  to  repay  richly  whatever 
effort  a  tutor  spends  upon  them,  but  I  have  seldom 
heard  such  warm  language  of  friendship  and  admira- 
tion as  from  certain  of  Heath's  pupils  when  they  talked 
about  him. 

It  is  curious  to  notice  that,  at  this  time,  when  his 
work  was  so  strikingly  successful  and  his  ship  had  been 
happily  brought  to  port,  he  began,  for  the  first  time  in 
my  knowledge  of  him,  to  be  uneasy  and  discontented.  It 
is  a  phenomenon  often  visible  in  the  best  of  the  young 
tutors  at  Oxford,  and  is  connected  with  the  very  quality 
which  makes  them  inspiring  as  teachers.  It  is  not  that 
they  do  not  enjoy  their  work  and  their  pupils.  They  do 
both.  But  their  interests  overflow  the  bounds  of  their 
activities.  They  pine  for  a  field  of  work  with  more  life  in 
it,  a  wider  outlook  and  more  prospect  of  effectiveness, 
a  horizon  less  limited  by  examinations  and  routine  and 
the  constant  training  of  undeveloped  minds.  Still  more, 
perhaps,  it  is  the  moral  trouble  that  besets  all  purely 


220  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

intellectual  workers,  the  difficulty  of  maintaining  faith 
in  the  value  of  your  own  work.  Even  if  Heath  had  been 
able  to  know  what  his  pupils  and  colleagues  thought  of 
him  and  said  of  him  among  themselves,  he  would  prob- 
ably have  suspected  that  they  were  merely  exaggerating. 
But  of  course,  as  a  rule,  men  do  not  hear  these  things. 
Friends  cannot  openly  pay  one  another  compliments. 

To  Heath,  so  far  as  he  discussed  the  matter  with  me, 
no  definite  alternative  really  presented  itself.  His  life 
was  very  varied  in  its  interests.  Besides  his  personal 
etudies  and  the  work  with  his  pupils,  he  derived  intense 
pleasure  from  his  piano,  and  took  an  active  part  in  the 
musical  life  at  Oxford.  He  would  often  go  out  to  one  of 
the  Oxfordshire  villages  and  play  classical  music  to  the 
village  people.  He  was  also,  during  his  last  two  years 
of  residence,  one  of  the  university  members  on  the 
Board  of  Guardians,  where  his  care  and  good  judgement 
were  greatly  valued,  and  the  contact  with  practical  life 
and  concrete  economic  problems  opened  to  him  a  new 
vista  of  interest.  He  refused  to  stand  for  a  certain  pro- 
vincial professorship,  which  would  have  given  him  a 
larger  income  and  more  leisure,  coupled  with  less  con- 
genial work  and  less  advanced  pupils.  At  one  time  he 
hankered  after  the  profession  of  medicine,  the  one  form 
of  intellectual  work  whose  utility  is  as  plain  as  a  pike- 
staff. Sometimes,  again,  he  rebelled  at  the  idea  of  al- 
ways teaching  men  who  had  such  abundance  of  good 
teaching  already,  and  wished  to  devote  himself  entirely 
to  the  "  W.E.A." 

This  society,  whose  initials  stand  for  "Workers'  Edu- 
cational Association,"  has  exercised  a  great  fascination 
over  the  best  minds  of  Oxford  for  the  last  ten  years  or 
so.  Wherever  a  class  of  working-men  chose  to  gather 


OXFORD  AND  THE  WAR  221 

together  and  ask  for  a  trained  university  graduate  to 
teach  them  and  to  read  and  discuss  their  essays,  the 
organization  tried  to  provide  an  Oxford  or  Cambridge 
man,  and  as  a  matter  of  fact  usually  managed  to  send 
one  of  the  best  and  most  invigorating  of  the  younger 
teachers  in  the  place.  Most  of  the  classes  were  conducted 
in  the  town  where  the  working-men  happened  to  live, 
but  arrangements  were  also  made  by  which  picked  men 
came  to  Oxford.  The  success  of  the  movement,  from  an 
educational  point  of  view,  has  been  nothing  less  than 
extraordinary;  and,  considering  the  miserable  pay  and 
the  discomforts  of  the  teacher's  life,  the  devotion  with 
which  dozens  of  brilliant  young  men  have  thrown  them- 
selves into  the  tutorial  work  has  been  a  credit  to  human 
nature. 

One  of  Heath's  W.E.A.  pupils,  a  member  of  the  Amal- 
gamated Society  of  Engineers,  wrote  to  a  friend:  "It 
was  Mr.  Heath's  influence  in  our  talks  together  (more 
especially  in  Oxford)  on  philosophy  that  had  a  most 
profound  effect,  I  hope  for  good,  on  my  character,  but 
at  any  rate  on  my  course  of  life,  opinions,  and  actions. 
Nothing  I  know  of  has  had  so  much  effect,  and  on  the 
whole  brought  so  much  real  happiness.  ...  I  almost 
loved  that  man,  so  you  will  forgive  the  tone  of  this  letter 
if  it  appears  strange." 

Early  in  1914  his  friends  were  surprised  to  see  the 
announcement  that  Heath  had  been  awarded  the  Green 
Moral  Philosophy  Prize  for  a  treatise  on  "Personality"; 
the  book  will,  I  hope,  be  published  at  the  end  of  the  war. 
He  had  not  told  most  of  his  friends  that  he  was  writing 
at  all;  and  I  remember  that  some  of  us  amused  our- 
selves by  writing  him  pretended  letters  of  congratula- 
tion from  various  celebrities  who  were  popularly  sup- 


222  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

posed  to  be  guilty  of  "personality"  in  their  political 
speeches,  and  who  offered  or  requested  suggestions  for 
its  more  effective  use.  He  detected  us,  of  course,  and 
wrote  to  me  shortly  afterwards:  " It  is  my  painful  duty 
to  inform  you  that  the  police  have  tracked  to  your  house 
three  letters  which  have  recently  been  delivered  to  me 
containing  illicit  threats  and  improper  comments  on  a 
question  of  public  interest.  Willingly  as  I  acquit  you  of 
any  personal  share  in  the  matter  ...  it  is  not  right  that 
Innocence  and  Respectability  —  as  found  in  my  pupils 
and  my  scout  —  should  be  exposed  to  even  a  remote 
chance  of  such  contamination" — as  these  letters  ap- 
parently contained.  He  threatened  prosecution,  but 
would  be  content  if  the  criminals  left  the  university. 

I  used  during  these  years  to  see  a  great  deal  of  him, 
and  had  the  custom  of  lunching  on  Tuesdays,  after  a 
twelve-o'clock  lecture,  with  him  and  his  colleague  G.  L. 
Cheesman,  a  young  historian.  Cheesman  knew  all  about 
the  army  of  the  Roman  Empire,  and  the  history  of  vari- 
ous separate  legions,  and  had  travelled  in  Dalmatia  and 
the  Balkans.  He  was  a  man  of  generous  and  brilliant 
mind,  an  inspiring  and  vivid  personality.  Cheesman 
loved  argument,  and  Heath  and  I  loved  Cheesman.  And 
we  differed  enough  in  opinion  to  keep  up  a  constant 
guerrilla  warfare  on  all  kinds  of  political  and  intellec- 
tual topics.  In  politics,  Cheesman  affected  the  part  of  a 
wide-awake,  progressive  Tory,  while  Heath  and  I  were 
content  to  be  dull,  old-fashioned  Radicals.  On  other 
subjects,  of  course,  the  divisions  were  different. 

I  think  it  was  on  August  7,  1914,  three  days  after  the 
declaration  of  war,  when  I  had  just  returned  from  Lon- 
don, that  I  had  a  call  on  the  telephone  from  Heath,  pro- 
posing himself  to  dinner,  and  telling  me  that  he  and 


OXFORD  AND  THE  WAR  223 

Cheesman  had  both  applied  for  commissions.  The  sum- 
mons had  come,  and  both  men,  so  different  in  tastes  and 
opinions,  though  alike  in  idealism,  had  responded  to  it 
together.  They  had  taken  about  two  days  to  think  the 
matter  thoroughly  out.  Heath  came  up  to  our  house 
that  evening,  and  one  or  two  other  men  also.  And  we 
talked  over  the  war,  and  Grey's  speech,  and  the  resist- 
ance of  Liege;  and  the  imminence  of  danger  to  France; 
and  the  relative  strength  of  the  British  and  German 
fleets;  and  then  of  our  German  friends  and  the  times 
we  had  stayed  in  various  parts  of  Germany.  Later  on 
Heath  sat  down  to  the  piano  and  played  French  music, 
Hungarian  music,  and,  lastly,  German  music,  and  the 
company  sang  German  songs  as  a  kind  of  farewell,  and 
he  and  his  friends  walked  back  to  college. 

He  went  first  to  train  at  Churn,  near  Oxford.  Then 
he  obtained  a  commission  in  the  Sixth  Battalion  of  the 
Royal  West  Kent  Regiment,  his  home  at  this  time  being 
in  Bromley,  and  joined  his  regiment  at  a  swampy  camp 
in  the  southeastern  counties,  whose  amusing  discom- 
forts and  oddities  he  described  in  many  letters.  "  No  self- 
respecting  cow,"  I  remember,  "would  graze  in  such  a 
place."  I  refrain  from  mentioning  the  various  camps 
where  he  was  stationed,  and  the  special  forms  of  train- 
ing he  went  through.  It  is  enough  that  he  became  at 
last  wearily  impatient  to  go  out  to  France.  There  were 
frequent  rumours  of  a  move:  at  one  time  hopes  were 
roused  by  the  prospect  of  a  special  inspection  by  a  dis- 
tinguished and  corpulent  veteran  "who  is  being  moved 
to-morrow  night  by  mechanical  transport  from  E.  .  .  . 
for  that  purpose."  He  opined  that  "Italy  and  Kitch- 
ener's Army  will  remain  neutral  till  the  end  of  the  war." 
One  comfort  was  that  "Our  Adjutant,  in  whom  I  have 


224  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

every  confidence,  informs  us  that  within  three  months 
we  shall  all  be  knocked  out."  This  letter  ends  with  a 
postscript:  "In  the  last  stages  of  our  twenty-seven-mile 
march  I  heard  one  man  ask  another  if  there  was  a  parade 
the  next  morning.  'Yes,'  was  the  answer;  'half-past- 
four.   Top-hats  and  bathing  drawers." ' 

At  last,  on  May  31,  1915,  I  received  the  following 
note:  "All  military  movements  must  be  executed  with 
profound  secrecy,  and  known  to  no  one  except  the  pop- 
ulation of  Aldershot,  the  station-masters  on  the  southern 
lines,  the  British  mercantile  marine,  and  the  friends  and 
relatives  of  the  few  thousand  men  concerned.  Therefore, 
all  I  can  say  to  you  at  this  crisis  is,  Vive  la  France  !  Vive 
VArmee  de  Kitchener!  Conspuez  Northcliffe!" 

This  cheery  tone  ran  through  almost  all  his  letters, 
and  was  borne  out  by  the  vigorous  gait  and  sun-browned 
skin  which  one  saw  on  his  occasional  visits  to  Oxford. 
Military  training  improved  his  physical  health  and 
cheerfulness.  He  complained  that  his  intellect  had  be- 
come dormant,  but  it  was  not  so.  He  read  a  good  deal 
and  thought  vigorously.  He  had  at  first,  like  all  thought- 
ful Englishmen,  a  feeling  of  utter  horror  at  the  prospect 
of  European  war,  and  an  uneasy  suspicion  that,  however 
necessary  it  might  be,  now  at  the  last  moment,  for  Eng- 
land to  fight,  surely  our  policy  for  many  years  back  must 
have  been  somewhere  dreadfully  at  fault.  The  White 
Paper  was  the  first  thing  to  reassure  him;  then  came  the 
study  of  earlier  questions;  and  in  the  end  he  felt  confi- 
dence in  the  wisdom  and  good  faith  of  British  diplomacy 
since  1904,  and  conceived  in  particular  a  great  admira- 
tion for  Sir  Edward  Grey.  "It  seems  to  me,"  he  wrote 
me  once  in  a  time  of  sorrow,  "that  most  people's  chief 
consolation  for  the  loss  of  their  friends  now  is  just  the 


OXFORD  AND  THE  WAR  225 

sense  of  the  absolute  Tightness  of  what  they  have  done 
and  the  way  they  died." 

Like  a  true  soldier,  he  was  always  angry  at  what  he 
considered  to  be  slanders  of  the  enemy.  He  detested 
atrocity-mongers,  and  for  a  time  disbelieved  the  stories 
of  German  cruelties  in  Belgium.  When  the  Bryce  Re- 
port was  published  and  the  evidence  became  too  strong, 
he  was  convinced.  But  he  never  spoke  of  these  subjects, 
and  the  only  reference  to  them  which  I  can  find  in  his 
letters  is  a  short  and  unexplained  sentence:  "It  seems 
that  the  Germans  have  taken  to  torturing  their  pris- 
oners.' '  I  think  that  with  him,  as  with  others  who  had 
joined  the  army  at  the  same  time,  this  "  sense  of  the  abso- 
lute Tightness  of  what  they  had  done"  became  stronger 
as  time  passed.  But,  to  the  end,  his  letters  find  room  for 
mockery  of  the  anti-German  mania  of  the  more  vulgar 
press,  and  of  the  old  ladies  who  knew  on  unimpeachable 
authority  that  this  or  that  eminent  and  august  person 
was  a  "Potsdammer"  or  a  convicted  spy. 

His  campaigning  in  France  lay  through  a  period  of 
discouragement  to  the  British  cause.  The  Russians  had 
met  their  great  defeat  on  the  Dunajec  before  he  left  Eng- 
land, and  continued  steadily  to  retreat  during  the  whole 
period.  This  great  disaster  reacted  upon  our  fortunes 
everywhere.  The  Gallipoli  expedition,  on  which  Heath 
had  pinned  his  most  confident  hopes,  first  dragged  and 
then  slowly  failed;  the  final  disappointment  at  Suvla  Bay 
took  place  on  August  15.  On  September  25  the  great 
Allied  offensive  in  Champagne  and  towards  Loos  began 
with  terrific  carnage  and  large  success,  but  the  losses 
were  too  severe  and  the  difficulties  ahead  increased  too 
fast  to  permit  of  the  advance  being  continued.  During 
September  it  had  become  more  clear  than  ever  that  the 


226  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

Allies  could  not  expect  any  armed  help  from  America, 
and  by  the  first  weeks  of  October  the  Kings  of  Bulgaria 
and  Greece  had  apparently  made  up  their  minds  that 
our  cause  was  safely  lost.  Venizelos  was  dismissed; 
Serbia  betrayed  by  her  ally  and  invaded  by  her  enemies. 

Meanwhile  Heath's  own  health  was  not  very  good. 
He  had  an  attack  of  some  sort  of  blood-poisoning,  which 
was  at  first  taken  for  scarlet  fever.  On  July  21  he  was 
wounded  in  the  scalp  by  a  splinter  of  shell,  while  resting 
in  billets,  and  insisted  on  returning  to  work  before  it  was 
healed.  He  remained  unwell  for  some  time  afterwards. 
Still  he  found  a  constant  interest  in  the  care  of  his  pla- 
toon, and  a  great  pleasure  in  the  men's  affection.  His 
letters  remain  steadily  cheerful.  Discomforts,  when 
mentioned  at  all,  are  always  treated  humorously.  He 
describes  one  of  his  men  who  had  just  written  an  indig- 
nant letter  about  "them  shirkers  at  home"  enjoying 
themselves,  "while  we  are  bearing  the  blunt";  and  ex- 
plains that  his  own  platoon  at  this  moment  is  "  bearing  the 
blunt"  by  lying  in  the  sun  asleep  or  playing  cards  in  a 
beautiful  rose-garden.  Another  time  he  has  just  been  so 
bold  as  to  give  a  clean  shirt  to  a  major;  "rather  like  giv- 
ing a  bun  to  an  elephant."  Graver  misfortunes  are  met 
in  the  same  way : "  The  poor  old  Grand  Duke  seems  to  be 
well  on  his  way  to  Nijni-Novgorod."  Now  and  again 
comes  a  sudden  blaze  of  anger  against  the  grousers  and 
backbiters  at  home:  "What  I  should  really  like  would 
be  to  go  down  Fleet  Street  with  a  machine-gun."  Just 
once  or  twice  comes  a  sentence  revealing,  like  a  flash  of 
light  on  an  abyss,  the  true  horror  of  the  things  he  did 
not  speak  about:  "These  are  days  when  men  should  be 
born  without  mothers." 

Like  nearly  all  thoughtful  men  he  was  often  troubled 


OXFORD  AND  THE  WAR  227 

beforehand  by  the  doubt  whether  his  courage  and  endur- 
ance would  stand  the  strain  of  real  war.  However,  at  the 
very  beginning  he  distinguished  himself  by  a  solitary 
scouting  expedition  in  which  he  discovered  a  German 
listening-post,  and,  later  on,  the  only  thing  that  seems 
to  have  disturbed  him  much  was  the  nerve-racking 
effect  of  the  gigantic  artillery.  He  wished  "the  great 
bullies  of  guns"  would  go  away,  and  leave  the  infantry 
to  settle  the  war  in  a  nice  clean  manner.  "If  I  had  my 
way  I  should  bar  out  every  weapon  but  the  rifle ;  and  even 
then,"  he  adds,  "I  should  prefer  brickbats  at  three 
quarters  of  a  mile."  In  the  middle  of  August  his  most 
intimate  friend  in  the  company,  Saumarez  Mann,  was 
very  badly  wounded  while  cutting  grass  in  front  of  the 
parapet.  Mann  was  still  an  undergraduate  at  Balliol, 
and  Heath's  letters  convey  echoes  of  the  chaff  that 
passed  between  the  two  friends.  "Mann  always  makes 
me  laugh;  he  is  so  big,"  says  one;  while  another  orders 
with  care  a  box  of  chocolates  for  Mann's  twenty-first 
birthday.  Fortunately  Mann's  wound  proved  not  to  be 
mortal.  Early  in  September  came  a  greater  blow,  the 
news  of  G.  L.  Cheesman's  death  at  Gallipoli.  There  was 
probably  not  a  man  in  the  army  who  was  more  vividly 
conscious  than  he  of  all  that  Constantinople  meant  in 
history  or  more  thrilled  by  the  prospect  of  fighting  for 
its  recovery. 

At  last,  on  October  8,  the  end  came.  It  was  Heath's 
twenty-eighth  birthday.  The  battalion  held  a  series  of 
trenches  in  front  of  Vermelles,  across  the  Hulluch  road, 
in  that  stretch  of  ghastly  and  shell-tortured  black  coun- 
try which  we  now  think  of  as  the  Loos  Salient.  For  the 
whole  day  there  had  been  an  intense  German  bombard- 
ment, tearing  and  breaking  the  trenches,  and  presum- 


228  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

ably  intended  to  lead  up  to  a  general  infantry  attack. 
It  was  decided,  in  order  to  prevent  this  plan  developing, 
that  the  Sixth  Battalion  should  attempt  an  attack  on 
the  enemy  at  "Gun  Trench."  This  was  a  very  difficult 
enterprise  in  itself,  and  doubly  so  to  troops  already  worn 
by  a  long  and  fierce  bombardment.  The  charge  was 
made  by  "  A"  Company  about  6.30  and  beaten  back.  It 
was  followed  by  a  series  of  bombing  attacks,  for  which 
a  constant  supply  of  bombs  had  to  be  kept  up  across  the 
open.  It  was  during  this  work  that  Arthur  Heath  fell, 
shot  through  the  neck.  He  spoke  once,  to  say,  "  Don't 
trouble  about  me,"  and  died  almost  immediately. 

The  whole  operation  was  finely  carried  out.  It  failed 
to  take  Gun  Trench,  but  it  seems  to  have  paralyzed  the 
attacking  power  of  the  enemy.  And  the  Official  Report 
states  that  the  commander  "  considered  that  the  6th 
R.W.  Kents  and  7th  E.  Surrey  showed  fine  military 
qualities  in  undertaking  an  attack  after  such  a  bombard- 
ment continued  throughout  the  day."  As  for  Arthur 
Heath  himself,  his  platoon  sergeant  wrote  to  his  par- 
ents: "It  will  console  you  to  know  that  a  braver  man 
never  existed.  Some  few  minutes  before  he  met  his 
death  I  heard  the  exclamation:  'What  a  man!  I  would 
follow  him  anywhere!'  These  few  words  express  the 
opinion  of  every  one  who  came  into  contact  with  him, 
and  we  all  feel  proud  to  have  had  the  honour  of  serving 
under  him."  Another  friend,  who  knew  him  but  slightly, 
wrote:  "I  can  only  think  of  him  as  one  who  has  left  a 
track  of  light  behind." 

Four  New  College  scholars  of  exceptional  intellect  and 
character  entered  the  university  in  1905  and  obtained 
Firsts  in  their  Final  Schools  in  1909  —  Arthur  Heath, 


OXFORD  AND  THE  WAR  229 

Leslie  Hunter,  R.  C.  Woodhead,  and  Philip  Brown.  And 
now  all  four  lie  buried  on  the  Western  front.  Each,  of 
course,  had  his  special  character  and  ways  and  aims;  but 
to  one  who  knew  them  well,  there  comes  from  all  of  them 
a  certain  uniform  impression,  the  impression  of  an  ex- 
traordinary and  yet  unconscious  high-mindedness.  It  is 
not  merely  that  they  were  clever,  hard-working,  con- 
scientious, honourable,  lovers  of  poetry  and  beauty;  the 
sort  of  men  who  could  never  be  suspected  of  evading  a 
duty  or,  say,  voting  for  their  own  interest  rather  than  the 
common  good.  It  was,  I  think,  that  the  standards  which 
had  become  the  normal  guides  of  life  to  them  were  as 
a  matter  of  plain  fact  spiritual  standards,  and  not  of 
the  world  nor  the  flesh.  The  University  of  Oxford  has 
doubtless  a  thousand  faults,  and  the  present  writer 
would  be  the  last  to  palliate  them;  but  it  has,  by  some 
strange  secret  of  its  own,  preserved  through  many  cen- 
turies the  power  of  training  in  its  best  men  a  habit  of 
living  for  the  things  of  the  spirit.  Its  philosophy  is 
broad  and  always  moving;  it  is  rooted  in  no  orthodoxy, 
and  the  chief  guide  of  its  greatest  school  is  Hellenism,  not 
scholasticism.  Yet  it  keeps  always  living,  in  generation 
after  generation  of  its  best  students,  a  tone  of  mind  like 
that  of  some  cassocked  clerk  of  the  Middle  Ages,  whose 
mental  life  would  shape  itself  into  two  aims :  in  himself 
to  glorify  God  by  the  pursuit  of  knowledge,  and  among 
his  fellow  men  to  spread  the  spirit  of  Christ. 

Such  language  may  sound  strained  as  applied  to  a 
group  of  men  who  were  earning  their  living  amongst  us 
in  perfectly  ordinary  ways,  as  teachers,  writers,  doctors, 
civil  servants,  some  of  them  in  the  law  or  in  business; 
but  it  implies  nothing  strained  or  specially  high-strung 
in  the  quality  of  their  daily  lives.  There  is  always  a 


230  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

religion  of  some  sort  at  the  root  of  every  man's  living. 
Every  man  is  either  willing  or  not  willing  to  sacrifice  him- 
self to  something  which  he  feels  to  be  higher  than  him- 
self, though  if  he  is  sensible,  he  will  probably  not  talk 
much  about  it.  And  men  of  conscience  and  self-mastery 
are  fully  as  human,  as  varied,  and  as  interesting  as  any 
weaklings  or  picturesque  scoundrels  are. 

Perhaps  the  first  thing  that  struck  one  about  Arthur 
Heath  was  his  gentleness  and  modesty.  "It  was  fine," 
says  one  of  his  superior  officers  at  Churn  camp,  "to  see 
a  first-rate  intellect  such  as  his  applied  to  a  practical 
matter  that  was  strange  to  him.  And  he  was  so  modest 
about  himself,  and  never  dreamed  how  we  all  admired 
him."  The  last  words  strike  one  as  exactly  true.  An- 
other quality  was  his  affectionateness,  or  rather  the  large 
space  that  affection  occupied  in  his  mind.  Affection,  in- 
deed, is  too  weak  a  term  to  describe  the  feeling  that 
seems  to  glow  behind  the  words  of  many  of  his  letters 
home;  for  instance,  the  beautiful  letter  to  his  mother, 
written  on  July  11,  about  the  prospect  of  death.  He  was 
a  devoted  son  and  brother,  interested  in  every  detail  of 
home  life,  and  not  forgetting  the  family  birthdays.  And 
the  same  quality  pervaded  much  of  his  relations  towards 
friends  and  acquaintances.  He  was  the  sort  of  man 
whom  people  confide  in,  and  consult  in  their  troubles. 

He  was  a  bold  thinker;  he  held  clear  opinions  of  his 
own  on  all  sorts  of  subjects.  He  often  differed  from  other 
people,  especially  from  people  in  authority.  Yet  he  was 
never  for  a  moment  bitter  or  conceited  or  anxious  to  con- 
tradict. There  was  no  scorn  about  him;  and  his  irre- 
pressible sense  of  fun,  so  far  from  being  unkind,  had  an 
element  of  positive  affection  in  it. 

In  comparing  him  with  other  men  who  have  fought 


OXFORD  AND  THE  WAR  231 

and  fallen  in  this  war,  I  feel  that  one  of  his  most  marked 
characteristics  was  his  instinct  for  understanding.  In 
the  midst  of  strong  feeling  and  intense  action  his  quiet, 
penetrating  intelligence  was  always  at  work.  Even  at 
the  front,  where  most  men  become  absorbed  in  their  im- 
mediate job,  he  was  full  of  strategical  problems,  of  the 
war  as  a  whole  and  the  effect  of  one  part  of  it  on  another, 
of  home  politics,  and  the  influences  he  believed  to  be 
baneful  or  salutary.  His  courage  was  like  that  of  the 
Brave  Man  in  Aristotle,  who  knows  that  a  danger  is 
dangerous,  and  fears  it,  but  goes  through  with  it  be- 
cause he  knows  that  he  ought.  He  liked  to  understand 
what  he  was  doing.  He  was  ready,  of  course,  to  obey 
without  question,  but  he  would  then  know  that  he  was 
obeying  without  question.  He  was  ready  to  give  his  life 
and  all  the  things  that  he  valued  in  life,  his  reading  and 
music  and  philosophy,  but  he  liked  to  know  what  he  was 
giving  them  for.  After  a  study  of  the  causes  of  the  war, 
he  writes  from  France : "  One  of  the  few  things  in  all  these 
intrigues  and  ambitions  that  can  be  considered  with 
pleasure  is  the  character  of  Sir  Edward  Grey.  ...  I  am 
very  puzzled  about  home  politics;  cannot  understand 
the  Welsh  miners  or  the  Coalition,  and  feel  all  convic- 
tions shaken  except  a  profound  belief  in  Mr.  Asquith." 
After  his  first  wound : ' '  Fear  is  a  very  odd  thing.  When 
I  was  up  in  the  trenches  about  thirty  yards  from  them 
[the  enemy],  I  got  over  the  parapet  and  crawled  out  to 
examine  a  mine-crater  without  anything  worse  than  a 
certain  amount  of  excitement.  But  when  we  are  back 
here  [in  Brigade  Reserve]  and  the  shells  start  screaming 
over,  I  feel  thoroughly  afraid,  and  there  is  no  denying 
it."  A  superior  officer  once  warned  him  not  to  think  so 
highly  of  his  men:  he  should  accept  it  as  a  fact  that 


232  FAITH,  WAR,  AND   POLICY 

"  theso  men  arc  damned  stupid,  and  what 's  more,  they  're 
not  anxious  to  do  more  than  they  can  help."  Heath 
bowed  to  the  officer's  superior  knowledge;  yet  he  did 
think  he  found  in  even  the  less  promising  men  a  certain 
intelligence  and  keenness:  "In  fact  I  am  like  the  man 
who  tried  to  be  a  philosopher,  but  found  that  cheerful- 
ness would  break  in." 

He  never  groused  about  hardships,  nor  yet  about  the 
evils  of  war.  The  war  was  something  he  had  to  carry 
through,  and  he  would  make  the  best  of  it  until  it  killed 
him.  He  realized  the  horror  of  a  war  of  attrition,  and 
the  true  nature  of  these  days  when  "  men  should  be  born 
without  mothers."  Yet  he  took  considerable  interest  in 
numerical  calculations  about  the  length  of  time  that 
would  be  necessary,  at  the  existing  rate  of  wastage,  to 
make  the  German  line  untenable.  And  his  calculations 
always  pointed  towards  the  certainty  of  our  ultimate 
victory.  When  a  phrase  of  poignant  pathos  occurs  in  the 
letters,  it  is  never  by  his  own  intention.  Thus,  in  speaking 
of  some  particular  operation  of  trench  warfare  he  writes : 
"Gillespie  taught  it  to  me,  and  now  I  am  teaching 
Geoffrey  Smith."  Gillespie,  Heath,  Geoffrey  Smith;  it 
was  in  that  order,  too,  that  they  taught  one  another  a 
greater  lesson.  A.  D.  Gillespie  died  a  brave  death  in 
September,  1915,  Heath  in  October  of  the  same  year, 
and  Geoffrey  Smith  in  the  July  following.  But  the  full 
tragedy  underlying  the  words  can  be  realized  only  by 
one  who  knew  those  three  rare  spirits. 

A  wonderful  band  of  scholars  it  was  that  went  out  in 
these  days  from  William  of  Wykeham's  old  foundation, 
young  men  quite  exceptional  in  intellectual  powers,  in 
feeling  for  the  higher  values  of  life,  in  the  sense  of 
noblesse  oblige,  and  in  loving-kindness  towards  the  world 


OXFORD  AND  THE  WAR  233 

of  men.  The  delicate  feeling  which  forms  the  founda- 
tion of  scholarship  was  in  them  not  a  mere  function  of 
the  intellect,  but  a  grace  pervading  all  their  human  rela- 
tions. No  grossness  or  graspingness  ever  found  a  foot- 
hold in  them,  no  germ  of  that  hate  which  rejoices  to  be- 
lieve evil  and  to  involve  good  things  with  bad.  Heath 
played  his  beloved  German  music  the  night  before  he 
left  Oxford.  Cheesman's  latest  letter  to  me  was  a  de- 
fence of  the  Turks  in  Gallipoli  from  some  misconception 
which  he  thought  was  in  my  mind.  Woodhead,  waiting 
to  advance  under  machine-gun  fire  and  knowing  that  the 
first  man  to  rise  would  be  a  certain  victim,  chose  care- 
fully the  right  moment  and  rose  first.  The  only  words 
that  Philip  Brown  spoke  after  he  was  mortally  wounded 
were  words  of  thought  and  praise  for  his  servant.  Leslie 
Hunter,  on  the  day  before  he  died,  spoke  to  a  friend  of 
his  presentiment  that  death  was  coming,  and  then  lay 
for  a  while  in  a  grassy  meadow,  singing,  "Ira  wunder- 
schonen  Monat  Mai" 

While  I  was  writing  these  lines  came  the  news  of  an- 
other of  the  band,  a  most  brilliant  young  scholar  and  his- 
torian, Leonard  Butler,  together  with  his  colonel's  state- 
ment in  the  "Times"  notice :  "  I  never  saw  a  finer  death." 
And  this  morning,  as  I  revise  them,  yet  another:  not 
indeed  a  member  of  this  group,  since  he  was  older  and 
had  already  achieved  fame  on  a  wider  field  of  action,  but 
one  whom  I  think  of  still  as  a  young  Wykehamist  under- 
graduate and  Ireland  Scholar,  by  nature  and  fortune 
perhaps  the  most  richly  gifted  of  all,  and  as  swift  as  any 
to  give  up  to  the  cause  that  summoned  him  all  the  shin- 
ing promise  of  his  life  —  Raymond  Asquith. 

One  after  another,  a  sacrifice  greater  than  can  be 
counted,  they  go;  and  will  go  until  the  due  end  is  won. 


234  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

At  the  close  of  the  Michaelmas  Term  of  1914  there  was 
a  memorial  service  at  New  College,  as  in  other  colleges, 
for  those  of  its  members  who  had  fallen  in  the  war.  It 
seemed  a  long  list  even  then,  though  it  was  scarcely  at  its 
beginning.  And  those  who  attended  the  service  will  not 
forget  the  sight  of  the  white-haired  warden,  full  of  blame- 
less years,  kneeling  before  the  altar  on  the  bare  stones, 
and  praying  that  it  might  be  granted  to  us,  the  survivors, 
to  live  such  lives  as  these  young  men  who  had  gone  be- 
fore us.  His  words  interpreted,  I  think,  the  unconscious 
feeling  of  most  of  those  who  heard  him.  It  certainly 
changes  the  whole  aspect  of  the  world,  even  to  a  man 
whose  life  is  advanced  and  his  character  somewhat  set, 
when  the  men  who  were  his  intimate  friends  are  proved 
to  have  had  in  them,  not  merely  the  ordinary  virtues  and 
pleasantnesses  of  common  life,  but  something  high  and 
resplendent  which  one  associates  with  the  stories  of  old 
saints  or  heroes;  still  more  when  there  is  burned  into 
him  the  unforgettable  knowledge  that  men  whom  he 
loved  have  died  for  him. 


XIII 

THE  TURMOIL  OF  WAR1 

(March,  1917) 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen:  — 

I  have  seldom  had  a  more  difficult  speech  to  deliver 
than  that  which  lies  before  me  this  evening.  Often 
enough  since  choosing  the  subject,  I  have  had  an  impulse 
to  turn  tail  and  fly  for  refuge  to  some  comparatively 
simple  and  undisturbing  question,  like  the  internal  re- 
lations of  the  Ukrainian  peoples  or  the  Serbs-Bulgarian 
Dialects  of  the  district  of  Monastir.  But  in  times  like 
these  if  a  man  undertakes  to  speak  to  his  fellow  citizens 
in  such  a  society  as  this,  serious  and  half-religious  in  its 
outlook,  it  seems  a  clear  duty  that  he  should  speak 
sincerely  of  the  sub j  ect  that  is  most  in  his  mind.  I  choose 
the  subject  about  which  I  feel  most  uncomfortable  hour 
by  hour  of  my  life;  and  though  I  have  little  to  say  that 
we  have  not  all  of  us  thought  and  said  before,  I  dare  say 
there  will  be  some  comfort  to  me  and  to  others  who  feel 
as  I  do  in  our  having  tried  to  puzzle  the  matter  out 
together. 

The  objects  of  this  society  are  two,  and  are  expressed 
in  its  name.  First,  we  are  ready  to  Fight;  we  are  not 
pacifists;  we  believe  in  the  duty  of  fighting.  But  sec- 
ondly, we  fight  only  for  the  Right.  We  dedicate  our 
effort  as  a  society  to  the  Right  and  all  that  it  implies: 
public  faith  between  States  and  Governments,  justice 

1  Address  to  the  Fight  for  Right  League,  March  4, 1917. 


236  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

between  the  strong  and  the  weak,  peace  and  good-will 
between  man  and  man,  between  nation  and  nation.  We 
oppose  with  all  our  strength  the  rule  of  naked  Force,  as 
it  seems  to  us  to  be  asserted  by  the  German  Govern- 
ment. And,  deliberately  and,  as  we  believe,  of  neces- 
sity, in  order  to  overthrow  this  assertion  of  the  rule  of 
Force,  we  appeal  to  Force  as  our  champion.  This  sounds 
illogical,  but  it  is  not  so.  We  appealed  first  to  all  other 
means.  We  began  with  no  ill-will,  with  no  touch  of 
secret  ambition.  We  tried  to  maintain  the  power  of 
Right  by  arbitration  or  conciliation  between  us  and  our 
neighbours.  And  in  the  last  resort,  when  we  did  appeal 
to  Force,  it  was  not  to  mere  naked  Force,  not  to  Force 
as  a  master.  We  did  not  put  the  sword  upon  the  throne. 
The  Force  we  appealed  to  was  the  obedient  minister  of 
a  free  and  constitutional  State,  which  was  seeking  not 
conquest  nor  its  own  aggrandizement,  but  the  reestab- 
lishment  of  Right  among  the  nations  of  Europe.  That 
was  the  attitude  in  which  Great  Britain  took  up  the  gage 
of  battle.  "We  hope,"  said  our  great  Prime  Minister  in 
November,  1914,  "that  the  longer  the  trial  lasts  and  the 
more  severe  it  becomes,  the  more  clearly  shall  we  emerge 
from  it  the  champions  of  a  just  cause;  and  we  shall  have 
achieved,  not  only  for  ourselves,  —  for  our  direct  and 
selfish  interests  are  small,  —  but  for  Europe  and  for 
civilization  and  for  the  great  principle  of  small  nation- 
alities, and  for  liberty  and  justice,  one  of  their  most 
enduring  victories. " 

Let  us  take  those  aims,  for  a  moment,  one  by  one.  We 
shall  "achieve  an  enduring  victory,"  first,  "for  our- 
selves, but  our  own  interests  are  small."  That  has  been 
made  plain,  for  example,  in  the  Allied  Note  to  President 
Wilson  about  our  war  aims.    In  that  rehearsal  of  the 


THE  TURMOIL  OF  WAR  237 

larger  aims  of  all  the  Allied  Powers,  Great  Britain  was 
conspicuous  in  that  she  asked  for  nothing.  (I  do  not,  of 
course,  say  that  we  shall  in  the  end  acquire  nothing.  But 
if  we  end  by  allowing  our  colonies  to  annex  certain  of 
the  conquered  German  colonies,  or  if  we  ourselves  con- 
tinue to  hold  the  district  of  Bagdad  and  Kut,  it  will  cer- 
tainly not  be  due  to  any  deliberate  plan  conceived  from 
the  beginning.) 

"A  victory  for  the  independence  of  small  nationali- 
ties":  is  that  too  much  to  claim?  No.  For  clearly  the 
freedom  of  every  nation  in  Europe  is  menaced  by  the 
policy  which  forced  war  upon  Serbia  in  spite  of  all  con- 
cessions, and  destroyed  Belgium  in  spite  of  her  absolute 
innocence  and  her  explicit  treaty.  If  that  policy  tri- 
umphed, how  much  freedom  would  remain  to  Holland, 
Denmark,  Switzerland,  or  any  other  of  the  smaller  na- 
tions? 

"A  victory  for  civilization":  is  that  too  much?  No. 
The  appalling  barbarization  of  warfare,  the  atmosphere 
of  deliberate  and  obscene  terrorism,  the  studied  con- 
tempt for  international  movements  and  Public  Right 
which  Germany  has  introduced  as  an  essential  element 
in  her  war-policy,  are  not  only  a  danger  to  civilization 
in  the  future,  but  are  in  themselves  the  absolute  denial 
and  destruction  of  civilization.  Nor  could  any  move- 
ment be  compatible  with  the  future  of  civilization  which 
rested  on  the  exaltation  of  Turkey,  by  war  in  Europe 
and  in  Asia  by  hideous  massacre. 

"A  victory  for  Europe":  is  that  too  much?  At  least 
it  is  clear  that  almost  all  free  Europe  believes  we  are 
fighting  for  her.  Germany  and  the  Austrian  Govern- 
ment and  apparently  the  Swedish  Government  think 
otherwise.     France,    Russia,    Portugal,    Italy,   Serbia, 


238  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

Montenegro,  Rumania,  a  large  proportion  of  the  sub- 
jects of  Austria,  and  most  of  the  peoples  of  Holland, 
Norway,  Denmark,  and  Spain  are  with  us,  as  well  as  the 
greatest  and  most  fearless  of  all  neutrals,  the  United 
States  of  America.  There  might  be  a  Europe,  there 
might  be  a  rich  and  fairly  peaceful  Europe,  under  Ger- 
many's domination;  but  the  peace  would  be,  as  Lord 
Grey  has  called  it,  "an  iron  peace,"  and  the  riches  would 
be  produced  for  German  masters  by  masses  of  men 
without  freedom  and  almost  without  nationality. 

"A  victory  for  liberty  and  justice" :  that  is  the  clear- 
est claim  of  all.  No  liberty  could  live  either  under  or 
beside  a  victorious  Prussia,  and  it  was  only  Germany's 
set  and  deliberate  refusal  to  consider  the  claims  of  justice 
that  precipitated  the  war.  Since  I  wrote  these  words  our 
claim  to  represent  the  cause  of  liberty  has  received  a 
tremendous  confirmation.  Our  ally  Russia  has  become 
a  free  nation.  The  event  has  shown  that  the  cause  of 
autocracy  and  the  cause  of  the  Allies  could  not  remain 
permanently  reconciled;  the  Russia  that  is  our  natural 
comrade  in  arms  must  be  Russia  free. 

The  case  seems  clear.  The  policy  of  this  League  seems 
both  intelligible  and  justified.  We  will  fight,  we  will  kill 
and  suffer  and  die,  rather  than  willingly  see  all  con- 
science banished  from  international  policy,  or  betray 
ourselves  and  weaker  nations  to  the  mercy  of  trium- 
phant wrong. 

And  yet  —  is  it  so  plain  as  all  that?  We  know  it  is 
not.  We  all  know  —  or,  if  we  do  not,  Thucydides  did  his 
best  two  thousand  years  ago  to  explain  it  to  us  —  that 
war,  at  any  rate  between  States  of  approximately  equal 
power,  is  not  an  instrument  that  can  be  directed  with 


THE  TURMOIL  OF  WAR  239 

precision  to  a  perfectly  definite  aim  and  turned  off  and 
on  like  a  garden  hose.  It  is  a  flood  on  which,  when  once 
the  flood-gates  are  opened,  those  who  have  opened  them 
will  be  borne  away.  In  August,  1914,  for  the  sake  of  our 
own  rights,  of  justice  and  of  humanity,  we  appealed  to 
Force.  Force  entered  and  took  the  centre  of  the  stage. 
It  became  a  struggle,  not  of  Right  against  Force,  but  of 
one  Force  against  another.  The  struggle  deepened,  be- 
came closer,  more  terrible,  more  fraught  with  anxiety. 
It  became  very  nearly  a  struggle  for  existence.  We  gave 
all  our  minds  to  it.  Gradually,  inevitably,  increasingly, 
the  fight  began  to  absorb  us.  And  while  the  men  who 
guided  England  and  expressed  the  spirit  of  England  in 
the  early  days  of  the  war  were  men  of  lofty  spirit  and  a 
profound  sense  of  responsibility,  idealists  like  Sir  Ed- 
ward Grey  and  philosophers  like  Mr.  Asquith  and  later 
on  Mr.  Balfour,  as  the  war  proceeded,  there  came  a 
change.  England  ceased  to  be  occupied  with  questions 
of  right  and  wrong;  she  became  occupied  with  the  ques- 
tions of  fighting  and  killing.  We  turned,  so  to  speak, 
from  the  men  who  could  give  wise  counsel;  we  called  on 
all  who  could  fight,  and  we  liked  best  those  who  could 
fight  hardest. 

And  here  comes  the  subject  of  my  address,  a  subject 
that  is  rather  terrible  to  a  man  of  conscience.  Do  you 
remember  how  Sir  Francis  Drake  once  had  to  hang  one 
of  his  officers ;  and  how  before  executing  the  sentence  he 
passed  some  time  in  prayer,  and  then  shook  hands  with 
the  offender?  That  is  the  sort  of  spirit,  perhaps  the  only 
spirit,  in  which  any  man  of  conscience  can  without  in- 
ward misery  approach  the  killing  and  torturing  of  his 
fellow  creatures.  He  is  ready,  if  need  be,  to  shed  blood; 
but  he  must  know  that  he  does  it  for  the  Right,  and  be- 


240  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

cause  he  must.  It  would  sicken  him  to  think  that  while 
doing  it,  he  was  secretly  paying  off  old  scores,  or  making 
money  out  of  it,  or,  still  worse,  enjoying  the  cruelty. 
This  slaying  of  men,  if  you  do  it  for  the  right  motive, 
may  be  a  high  and  austere  duty;  if  you  admit  any  wrong 
motive,  it  begins  to  be  murder  —  and  hypocritical 
murder. 

And  yet,  as  soon  as  you  let  loose  in  war  the  whole  of  a 
big  nation,  you  have  handed  over  that  high  and  austere 
duty  to  agents  who  cannot  possibly  perform  it :  to  masses 
of  very  ordinary  people,  and  not  only  of  ordinary  people, 
but  of  stupid  and  vulgar  and  drunken  and  covetous  and 
dishonest  and  tricky  and  cruel  and  brutal  people,  who 
will  transform  your  imagined  crusade  into  a  very  dif- 
ferent reality. 

When  the  war  was  flung  into  the  midst  of  all  this 
seething,  heterogeneous  mass  of  men  who  make  up 
Great  Britain  or  the  British  Empire,  it  called  out  nat- 
urally those  who  in  their  different  ways  were  most  akin 
to  it.  It  called  out  both  the  heroes  and  the  ruffians.  But 
in  the  main,  as  the  war  atmosphere  deepened  among  the 
civilian  population,  the  men  who  were  interested  in 
justice  became  unimportant;  those  who  were  specially 
interested  in  humanity  were  advised  to  be  discreet  in 
their  utterances.  It  is  quite  others  who  came  to  the  front : 
the  men  —  for  such  exist  in  all  countries  —  who  believe 
in  Force  and  love  Force;  who  love  to  wage  bloody  bat- 
tles, or  at  least  to  read  about  them  and  lash  their 
younger  neighbours  into  them;  who  rage  against  the 
"mere  lawyers"  who  care  about  right  and  wrong; de- 
spise the  puling  sentimentalists  who  have  not  deadened 
their  hearts  to  all  feeling  of  human  compassion ;  loathe 
the  doctrinaire  politicians  who  dare  to  think  about  the 


THE  TURMOIL  OF  WAR  241 

welfare  of  future  generations  instead  of  joining  in  the 
carnival  of  present  passion. 

What  is  to  be  our  attitude  to  this  change?  Does  it 
invalidate  the  whole  position  of  our  Society?  I  think 
not. 

We  knew  we  should  let  loose  these  evil  powers,  but  we 
believe  we  can  cling  to  our  duty  in  spite  of  them.  It  was 
part  of  the  price  we  had  to  pay,  if  we  wished  to  save  Eu- 
rope, to  save  the  small  nationalities,  to  save  liberty  and 
civilization.  And  it  is  by  no  means  all  the  price.  It  is 
only  an  extra.  It  comes  as  an  addition  to  the  long  bill  of 
dead  and  wounded,  of  the  mountains  of  unatoned  and 
inexplicable  suffering,  the  vista  of  future  famine  and 
poverty,  and  the  beggary  of  nations.  And  it  is  not  the 
only  extra.  There  is  something  that  goes  wrong  in  us 
ourselves. 

On  every  side  one  sees  the  influence  of  that  queer,  dis- 
torting force  which  protects  our  tired  nerves  by  cheapen- 
ing and  marring  all  our  high  emotions.  We  entered  on 
this  war  in  a  state  of  moral  exaltation.  If  ever  in  the 
course  of  my  life  I  have  been  privileged  to  look  on  pure 
heroism,  it  was  in  some  of  the  young  men  who  volun- 
teered for  military  service  in  the  first  few  months  of  the 
war.  It  is  not  difficult  to  get  vigorous  young  men  to  risk 
their  lives.  But  the  men  I  mean  did  far  more  than  that. 
They  gave  up  almost  all  they  cared  for  in  life,  all  their 
enjoyments,  their  intellectual  aims,  the  causes  for  which 
they  were  working;  they  gave  up  a  fife  of  constructive- 
ness  and  brotherly  love,  to  which  they  were  devoted,  to 
undertake  a  life,  not  only  of  great  hardship  and  danger, 
—  that  is  simple,  —  but  one  consecrated  to  malignity 
and  destruction,  which  they  loathed.  And  the  motive 
which  impelled  and  inspired  them  was  a  faith,  a  very 


242  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

high  faith,  that  a  crisis  had  arisen  in  the  history  of  man- 
kind which  made  this  strange  sacrifice  desirable.  A  vast 
crime  was  suddenly  before  us;  a  crime  striding  to  accom- 
plishment, almost  triumphant,  and  so  dire  in  its  ultimate 
meaning  that  each  of  these  men  felt  within  him,  "That 
must  never  happen  while  I  live!"  In  that  faith  they 
turned  from  their  old  ideals,  from  their  hopes,  their 
causes,  their  books,  their  music,  their  social  work,  or 
their  philosophy;  they  served  to  the  utmost  of  their 
strength  and  the  greater  number  of  them  are  now  dead. 

I  speak  of  the  class  of  men  I  knew  best.  But  the  same 
spirit  in  different  degrees  ran  through  the  larger  part  of 
Great  Britain.  ' 

That  is  how  it  happens.  You  face  the  beginning  of  a 
war  with  intense  feeling.  You  feel  the  casualties,  you 
feel  the  pain  of  the  wounded,  you  feel  the  horror  of  what 
your  friends  have  to  do,  as  well  as  what  they  have  to 
suffer.  You  feel  also  the  uplifting  emotion  of  sacrifice  for 
a  great  cause. 

But  you  cannot  possibly  go  on  feeling  like  that.  War 
is  a  matter  of  endurance,  and  if  you  allow  yourself  to 
feel  continually  in  this  intense  way,  you  will  break  down. 
In  mere  self-protection  a  man,  whether  soldier  or  civil- 
ian, grows  an  envelope  of  defensive  callousness.  Instinc- 
tively, by  a  natural  process,  you  avoid  feeling  the  hor- 
rors, and  you  cease  to  climb  the  heights  of  emotion. 
After  all,  an  average  man  may  be  sorry  for  the  Czecho- 
slovaks; he  may  even  look  them  up  on  a  map;  but  he 
cannot  go  on  grieving  about  them  year  in  and  year  out. 
He  may  realize  in  flashes  the  actual  meaning  in  terms  of 
human  misery  of  one  hour  of  the  war  which  he  is  not 
fighting  indeed,  but  ordering  and  paying  for.  But  he 
could  not  live  if  he  did  so  steadily.  He  proceeds,  quite 


THE  TURMOIL  OF  WAR  243 

naturally,  first  to  put  the  enemy's  suffering  out  oi*&c- 
count.  He  deserves  all  he  gets,  anyhow.  Then  the  suf- 
ferings of  the  victim  nations :  he  is  very  sorry,  of  course, 
for  Belgium,  Poland,  Serbia,  Rumania,  the  Armenians. 
But  it  is  no  good  being  sorry.  Better  to  get  on  with  the 
war!  Then  the  sufferings  of  his  own  people,  the  young 
men  and  middle-aged  men  who  have  gone  out  to  France 
or  the  East.  He  cannot  quite  forget  these ;  he  must  think 
about  them  a  good  deal  and  the  thought  is  painful.  So 
he  transforms  them.  When  they  once  put  on  khaki,  they 
became,  he  imagines,  quite  different.  They  were  once 
James  Mitchell  the  clerk,  Thomas  Brown  the  railway 
porter,  John  Baxter  the  Wesleyan  carpenter.  But  now 
they  are  "Tommies."  And  we  invent  a  curious  psy- 
chology for  them,  to  persuade  ourselves  somehow  that 
they  like  the  things  they  do,  and  do  not  so  very  much 
mind  the  things  they  suffer. 

And  then,  in  spite  of  all  this  protective  callousness,  in 
spite  of  the  pretences  we  build  up  in  order  to  make 
ourselves  comfortable,  there  continues  underneath  the 
brazen  armour  of  our  contentment  a  secret  horror,  a 
raging  irritation  —  how  shall  I  put  it?  It  is  the  cease- 
less, bitter  sobbing  of  all  that  used  once  to  be  recognized 
as  the  higher  part  of  our  nature,  but  now  is  held  prisoner, 
stifled  and  thrust  aside  .  .  .  because  the  need  of  the 
world  is  for  other  things.  And  some  of  us  throw  up  the 
moral  struggle  and  go  blindly  for  pacifism.  (I  met  a  man 
lately  who  had  left  the  useful  and  peaceful  work  he  had 
been  allowed  by  the  military  authorities  to  follow,  be- 
cause he  felt  he  could  never  find  peace  except  in  prison 
or  on  the  scaffold.)  Most  of  us,  I  believe,  do  our  duty  as 
best  we  can;  trying  amid  so  much  heroic  fortitude  tp 
show  a  little  decent  power  of  self-denial,  and  amid  such 


244  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

oceans  of  cruelty  to  scatter  the  few  drops  of  personal 
kindness  that  we  can.  And  a  third  set,  almost  all  civil- 
ians, led  partly  by  party  passion  and  self-interest,  partly 
by  the  overflow  of  angry  impulses  which  cannot  find 
vent  in  honest  fighting,  partly  by  mere  vulgarity  and 
love  of  excitement,  dance  a  kind  of  devil's  chorus  in  fury 
lest  any  calm  wisdom,  any  reasoned  judgement,  any 
scrupulous  honour,  should  still  be  allowed  a  voice  in  the 
future  of  England. 

Let  me  read  you  some  passages  from  a  letter  written 
by  a  soldier,  not  an  officer,  about  his  impressions  of  us 
civilians  in  England  when  he  returned  after  a  long  and 
meritorious  time  of  service  in  France.  He  seems  to  see 
us  across  a  gulf  of  mutual  misunderstanding. 

You  speak  lightly  [he  says] ;  you  assume  that  we  shall  speak 
lightly  of  things  .  .  .  which  to  us  are  solemn  or  terrible.  You 
seem  ashamed,  as  if  they  were  a  kind  of  weakness,  of  the  ideas 
which  sent  us  to  France,  and  for  which  thousands  of  sons  and 
lovers  have  died.  You  calculate  the  profits  to  be  derived  from 
War  after  the  War,  as  though  the  unspeakable  agonies  of  the 
Somme  were  an  item  in  a  commercial  proposition.  You  make 
us  feel  that  the  country  to  which  we  have  returned  is  not  the 
country  for  which  we  went  out  to  fight.  .  .  .  We  used  to  blas- 
pheme and  laugh  and  say,  "Oh,  it's  only  the  newspapers. 
People  at  home  can't  really  be  like  that."  But  after  some 
months  in  England  I  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  your 
papers  don/t  caricature  you  so  mercilessly  as  we  supposed. 
No,  the  fact  is  you  and  we  have  drifted  apart.  We  have 
slaved  for  Rachel,  but  it  looks  as  if  we  had  got  to  live  with 
Leah. 

He  speaks  of  the  ideas  with  which  we  entered  upon 
the  war. 

«How  often,  fatigued  beyond  endurance,  or  horrified  by  one-'s 
own  actions,  does  one  not  recur  to  those  ideas  for  support  and 


THE  TURMOIL  OF  WAR  245 

consolation!  It  is  worth  it/because  ...  It  is  awful,  but  I  need 
not  loathe  myself  because  .  .  .  We  see  things  which  you  can 
only  imagine.  We  are  strengthened  by  reflections  which  you 
have  abandoned.  .  .  .  While  you  seem  to  have  been  surrender- 
ing your  creeds  with  the  nervous  facility  of  a  Tudor  official,  our 
foreground  may  be  different,  but  our  background  is  the  same. 
It  is  that  of  August  to  November,  1914.  We  are  your  ghosts. 

I  can  forgive  you  for  representing  war  as  a  spectacle  instead 
of  a  state  of  existence.  I  suppose  that  to  a  correspondent  who 
is  shepherded  into  an  observation  post  on  a  show  day,  it  does 
seem  spectacular.  But  the  representation  of  the  human  beings 
concerned  is  unpardonable.  There  has  been  invented  a  kind  of 
conventional  soldier,  whose  emotions  and  ideas  are  those  which 
you  find  it  most  easy  to  assimilate  with  your  coffee  and 
marmalade.  And  this  "Tommy"  is  a  creature  at  once  ridicu- 
lous and  disgusting.  He  is  represented  as  invariably  "  cheer- 
ful," as  revelling  in  the  excitement  of  war,  as  finding  sport  in 
killing  other  men,?as  "hunting  Germans  out  of  dug-outs  as  a 
terrier  hunts  rats,"  as  overwhelming  with  kindness  the  captives 
of  his  bow  and  spear.  The  last  detail  is  true  to  life,  but  the 
emphasis  you  lay  on  it  is  both  unintelligent  and  insulting.  Do 
you  expect  us  to  hurt  them  or  starve  them? 

Of  the  first  material  reality  of  war,  from  which  everything 
else  takes  its  colour,  the  endless  and  loathsome  physical  ex- 
haustion, you  say  little;  for  it  would  spoil  the  piquancy,  the 
verve,  of  the  picture.  Of  your  soldiers'  internal  life,  the  con- 
stant collision  of  contradictory  moral  standards,  the  liability 
of  the  soul  to  be  crushed  by  mechanical  monotony  .  .  .  the 
sensation  of  taking  a  profitless  part  in  a  game  played  by 
monkeys  and  organized  by  lunatics,  you  realize,  I  think, 
nothing.  Are  you  so  superficial  as  to  imagine  that  men  do  not 
feel  emotions  of  which  they  rarely  speak:  or  do  you  suppose 
that,  as  a  cultured  civilian  once  explained  to  me,  these  feelings 
are  confined  to  "gentlemen"  and  are  not  shared  by  "common 
soldiers"  ?  .  .  . 

They  carry  their  burden  with  little  help  from  you.  For 
when  men  work  in  the  presence  of  death,  they  cannot  be 
satisfied  with  conventional  justifications  of  a  sacrifice  which 
seems  to  the  poor  weakness  of  our  flesh  intolerable.  They 
hunger  for  an  assurance  which  is  absolute,  for  a  revelation  of 


246  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

the  spirit  as  poignant  and  unmistakable  as  the  weariness  of 
their  suffering  bodies.  ...  To  most  of  us  it  must  come  from  you 
or  not  at  all.  For  an  army  does  not  live  by  munitions  alone, 
but  also  by  fellowship  in  a  moral  idea  or  purpose.  And  that, 
unless  you  renew  your  faith,  you  cannot  give  us.  You  cannot 
give  it  us  because  you  do  not  possess  it. 

These  are  grave  charges.  I  will  presently  say  a  word 
or  two  in  answer  to  them,  but  for  the  present  the  serious 
fact  for  us  to  realize  is  that  such  charges  are  made.  The 
man  who  makes  them  is  not  a  pacifist,  but  a  good  sol- 
dier; not  an  eccentric,  not  a  sentimentalist  nor  a  man  of 
immature  judgement.  Quite  the  reverse.  And  he  feels, 
on  returning  to  England  after  two  years  of  war,  that  we 
have  not  only  sent  him  and  his  fellows  out  to  die  for  us, 
but  that  in  their  absence  we  have  betrayed  them.  We 
sent  them  out  to  fight  for  an  England  which  was  the 
champion  of  Freedom  and  the  Human  Conscience  and 
International  Right;  and  when  once  they  were  gone  we 
cast  these  phrases  away,  having  no  more  use  for  them, 
and  left  them  to  fight  and  die  for  the  "Times"  and  the 
"Daily  Mail." 

Now,  there  are  many  pleas  that  can  be  urged  in  ex- 
tenuation of  these  charges.  I  will  mention  them  pres- 
ently. I  wish  first  to  urge  another  point.  Admit  for  the 
moment  that  they  are  largely  true;  that  we  have  fallen 
from  our  ideals.  Would  it  have  altered  our  action,  ought 
it  to  have  altered  our  action,  in  August,  1914?  If  we  had 
known  that,  in  addition  to  the  awful  waste  of  human 
life,  in  addition  to  the  incalculable  sum  of  suffering,  in 
addition  to  the  desperate  impoverishment  of  Europe, 
the  war  was  likely  to  bring  upon  us  a  certain  lowering 
of  the  national  ideals,  and  a  time  of  bitter  and  perhaps 
sordid  reaction ;  if  we  had  known  all  this,  should  we  still 


THE  TURMOIL  OF  WAR  247 

have  declared  war  against  the  German  Empire?  My 
answer  is,  Yes. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  we  did  know  it,  or  at  least  surmise 
it.  I  was  looking  back  at  some  speeches  I  made  myself 
in  1914  and  1915  and  I  find  that  I  mentioned  explicitly 
every  one  of  these  evils  among  the  probable  results  of 
the  war.  And  I  have  no  doubt  that  others  did  the  same. 
We  foresaw  it;  and  we  disliked  and  dreaded  the  prospect. 
We  would  have  done  almost  anything,  have  sacrificed 
almost  anything,  to  avoid  both  the  war  and  its  conse- 
quences; but  we  were  faced  by  the  one  thing  we  could 
not  do,  we  were  asked  for  the  one  sacrifice  we  could  not 
give.  We  could  not  agree  that,  while  we  still  had  life 
and  strength,  the  world  should  with  our  consent  be  con- 
quered by  naked  Force  and  held  down  by  Terrorism. 

However  badly  we  may  have  been,  or  are  yet  likely  to 
be,  demoralized  by  this  war,  that  is  a  lesser  evil  than  if  all 
free  Europe  were  conquered  by  Germany.  And  even  to 
be  conquered  by  Germany  now,  after  all  we  have  suf- 
fered, would  be  a  lesser  evil  than  to  have  submitted  to 
her  without  a  struggle.  If  after  the  invasion  of  Belgium 
the  rest  of  Europe  had  submitted  to  the  Germans  with- 
out a  struggle,  it  would  have  saved  millions  of  lives,  tons 
of  treasure,  oceans  of  suffering;  but  it  would  have  meant 
a  greater  evil  to  mankind  than  any  such  measurable 
losses.  It  would  have  meant  that  the  Spirit  of  Man 
itself  was  dead. 

And  now  for  my  pleas  in  extenuation.  I  think  the 
charges  brought  by  my  friend  in  that  letter  (the  whole 
letter,  by  the  way,  has  been  printed  as  a  leaflet  and  can 
be  bought  from  the  " Nation"  office)  are  in  some  degree 
true.  At  least  they  waken  in  my  own  mind  a  feeling  of 
mixed  guilt  in  myself  and  resentment  against  others 


248  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

more  guilty.  But  I  believe  that,  in  the  natural  pain  and 
shock  of  his  disappointment,  he  has  felt  the  marks  of  our 
corruption  to  be  more  permanent  and  deep-rooted  than 
they  are.  Many  of  the  symptoms  that  seem  worst  are 
really  misinterpreted. 

Have  you  noticed  how,  at  a  play,  when  a  particularly 
moving  or  touching  moment  occurs,  you  will  always  hear 
some  people  laugh?  You  probably  feel  in  your  fury  that 
they  are  brute  beasts,  outcasts  from  the  human  race; 
but  they  are  not.  The  explanation  merely  is  that,  as  is 
usual  at  touching  moments,  they  had  two  contrary  im- 
pulses at  the  same  time,  one  bidding  them  cry  and  one 
bidding  them  laugh.  And,  in  a  natural  self-protection, 
they  checked  the  first  and  indulged  the  second. 

All  this  callous  cheerfulness,  all  this  gay  brutality, 
with  which  people  sometimes  speak  of  bursting  shells 
and  "the  leg  of  a  fat  Hun  performing  circles  in  the  air," 
or  of  poking  into  dug-outs  with  bayonets  and  "picking 
out  the  Boches  like  periwinkles  on  a  pin"  ...  all  that 
loathsome  stuff  is  to  a  great  extent  mere  self-protection. 
It  is  a  kind  of  misplaced  tact.  Something  more  real, 
more  near  the  truth,  more  undisguisedly  horrible,  is  just 
round  the  corner  of  the  speaker's  mind,  and  he  is  de- 
termined not  to  let  it  show  itself.  If  it  emerged,  it 
would  make  every  one  feel  awkward.  ...  I  do  not  say 
that  this  sort  of  language  is  not  bad ;  it  is,  very  bad,  both 
in  origin  and  in  effect.  But  I  do  say  strongly  that  it  is 
not  profound,  and  is  not  what  it  appears  to  be. 

Similarly,  when  a  man  with  a  conscience  or  sense  of 
justice  in  him  goes  along  the  streets  of  London  and  looks 
at  the  posters,  his  heart  sometimes  fails  him  and  he 
thinks,  "Is  this  the  nation  for  which  I  am  fighting,  and 
for  which  my  friends  have  died?"    And  the  answer  is 


THE  TURMOIL  OF  WAR  249 

No.  It  is  not.  Those  posters  do  not  represent  the  na- 
tion. They  do  not  really  represent  even  the  wretched 
man  who  made  them.  They  are  based,  no  doubt,  on 
something  in  his  mind.  But  that  something  has  been 
first  distorted  in  the  way  he  imagines  will  please  people 
inferior  to  himself;  next,  concentrated  and  squashed  so 
as  to  be  expressed  in  two  or  three  words;  and  then 
"gingered  up"  to  attract  the  notice  of  a  tired  and  busy 
crowd  whose  eyes  are  dazed  with  hosts  of  similar  plac- 
ards. 

Our  nation  itself  is  nothing  like  as  unjust  and  greedy, 
nothing  like  as  factious  and  fond  of  lies,  as  intolerant, 
as  cruel,  or  as  stupid  as  it  would  seem,  and  does  seem, 
to  a  foreigner  studying  the  streets  and  the  newspapers. 
For  a  purely  temporary  cause,  we  cannot  express  our- 
selves freely  while  the  war  lasts.  "  Why  not?  "  asks  some 
unrepentant  Radical,  and  the  answer  is  easy.  Simply 
because  there  are  sixty  million  people  listening  who  want 
to  kill  us,  and  we  must  be  careful  that  they  do  not  over- 
hear anything  that  may  help  them  in  doing  so.  Parlia- 
ment is  muzzled  and  largely  impotent ;  and  Parliament 
is  the  one  place,  the  one  great  institution,  in  which  any 
statement,  however  unpopular,  can  be  made;  and  where 
any  false  statement  made  can  be  challenged  and  an- 
swered. 

That  is  what  makes  Parliament  the  unique  and  irre- 
placeable guardian  of  our  liberties.  The  newspapers  can 
never  possibly  take  its  place.  Many  of  them,  I  gladly 
admit,  do  their  best  under  uphill  conditions.  I  am  often 
filled  with  admiration  for  the  power  with  which  some 
few  of  our  great  journalists  maintain  day  after  day, 
under  every  circumstance  of  trial,  the  same  high  level  of 
thought  and  style,  of  self-command  and  of  patriotism. 


250  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

But  such  men  arc  striving  against  the  stream.  Such  cen- 
soring of  newspapers  as  there  is  tells  almost  entirely  in 
one  direction,  and  that  the  same  direction  as  popular 
prejudice.  It  is  no  corrective.  While  war  lasts,  every 
voice,  every  fact,  every  principle,  which  seems  likely 
to  weaken  the  war-spirit  is  feared  and  disapproved  and 
often  suppressed.  I  do  not  wish  to  complain  of  this  one- 
sided censorship,  though  every  one  admits  that  its  work- 
ing is  far  from  perfect.  I  only  want  to  point  out  that  it 
is  one-sided.  In  every  subject  you  can  take,  as  it  were, 
a  sort  of  central  line  which  represents  roughly  the  opin- 
ion of  the  moderate  man ;  other  opinions  are  either  to  the 
left  of  it  or  to  the  right  of  it.  I  do  not,  of  course,  say  that 
the  moderate  man  is  necessarily  right.  But  suppose  you 
suppress  or  fiercely  discourage  all  expression  of  opinion 
on  one  side  of  that  line  while  allowing  it  perfect  freedom 
on  the  other  side ;  the  result  is  obviously  not  a  fair  rep- 
resentation of  the  opinion  of  the  country.  Opinions 
which  tell  in  favour  of  justice,  of  moderation,  of  all  the 
qualities  which  mankind  once  thought  good  and  will 
assuredly  think  good  again,  are  suppressed  or  discour- 
aged; the  opposite  opinions  are  let  loose  like  wild  asses 
stamping  and  braying  above  the  graves  of  the  dead.  The 
spectacle  that  sickened  my  friend  was  not  a  true  picture 
of  the  nation  as  it  is,  nor  any  reflection  of  the  minds  of 
the  real  men  and  women  who  go  home  at  night  to  think 
much  of  their  sons  and  husbands  in  the  trenches,  and  a 
little  also  of  the  unhappy  people  in  Serbia  or  Poland  or 
France,  or  it  may  be  in  Germany.  The  outside  spectacle 
presented  by  any  nation  is,  I  believe,  nearly  always  a 
worse  and  uglier  thing  than  the  nature  of  any  average 
individual.  The  men  and  women  themselves  are  better 
than  the  newspapers  and  the  streets. 


THE  TURMOIL  OF  WAR  251 

Some  of  you  will  remember  Plato's  words  in  the  "  Re- 
public," answering  those  who  talk  violently  of  the  corrup- 
tion of  the  young  by  false  teachers,  and  his  description 
of  the  real  false  teacher,  the  real  sophist,  to  whom  the 
corruption  of  the  world  is  mostly  due.  Plato  was  not 
much  afraid  of  sophists  like  Mr.  Shaw  or  Mr.  Morel  or 
Mr.  Snowden;  what  he  dreaded  was  the  great  intangible 
sophist,  with  no  body  to  be  kicked  and  no  soul  to  be 
damned,  who  lurks  in  posters  and  headlines  and  tri- 
umphant majorities. 

Do  you  believe  in  young  persons  corrupted  by  bad  teachers, 
and  in  individual  bad  teachers  who  corrupt  them,  to  any 
serious  extent?  Don't  you  know  that  the  people  who  talk  like 
this  are  themselves  the  great  False  Teachers,  and  always  edu- 
cating people  and  finishing  them  off,  young  and  old,  men  and 
women,  exactly  to  their  own  taste? 

When  do  you  mean?  said  he. 

Whenever  they  sit  down  together  in  a  crowd,  in  a  public 
meeting  or  a  law  court  or  a  theatre  or  a  camp,  or  any  other 
collection  of  human  beings,  and  make  a  great  noise  and 
shower  praise  on  various  things  that  are  said  or  done  and 
blame  on  others,  always  exaggerating,  whichever  it  is;  and 
they  shout  and  clap  their  hands,  till  the  walls  of  the  place 
where  they  are  and  the  rocks  outside  reecho  and  multiply  the 
noise  of  all  the  praise  and  blame?  Where  do  you  think  a  young 
man's  heart  sinks  to  then?  What  sort  of  private  education  can 
hold  out,  and  not  be  flooded  and  swept  away  on  the  torrent  of 
all  that  praise  and  blame?  Till  the  lad  agrees  and  says  all  the 
same  things  are  good  or  evil  as  the  crowd  says,  and  follows  the 
same  lines  as  they  follow  and  becomes  just  like  them? 

Of  course  he  must. 

Why,  I  have  not  yet  mentioned  the  great  Must.  The  real 
Must  which  these  teachers  and  sophists  bring  to  bear,  if  their 
words  are  not  enough.  Don't  you  know  what  waits  for  the 
man  who  is  not  persuaded,  confiscations  and  outlawries  and 
death?1 

1  Plato,  Republic,  p.  492. 


252  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  these  words  specially  apply 
to  us.  We  have  no  confiscations  or  executions.  We  have, 
considering  the  greatness  of  the  crisis  and  the  prolonged 
strain,  comparatively  little  of  the  persecuting  spirit. 
The  old  Liberal  England  cannot  be  killed  in  a  day.  But 
I  quote  these  words  as  a  reminder  of  two  things:  first, 
that  at  present,  as  in  all  times  of  great  public  excite- 
ment, there  is  necessarily  this  huge,  intangible  sophist 
at  his  work,  perverting  wisdom  and  stirring  up  the  im- 
pulses of  terror  and  hatred ;  and  secondly  and  with  more 
emphasis,  that,  after  all,  he  will  not  be  there  forever. 
Peace  must  come  some  day,  and  after  peace  eventually 
a  return  to  normal  life. 

First,  that  the  heart  of  England  must  not  be  judged 
by  these  outward  manifestations;  and  next,  that  even 
these  outward  manifestations  are  not  things  that  will 
last. 

To  those  who  are  troubled,  as  I  have  been  troubled, 
by  thoughts  of  the  kind  raised  by  my  friend's  letter,  I 
would  venture  to  say,  therefore,  these  words  of  counsel : 
First,  let  us  be  sure  in  our  hearts  that  we  are  not  our- 
selves false  to  the  ideals  of  1914;  that  the  cause  for  which 
our  friends  have  died  or  suffered,  the  cause  for  which  we 
have  assented  to  the  shedding  of  torrents  of  innocent 
blood,  shall  never  by  us  be  degraded  to  anything  lower 
than  the  cause  of  Public  Right  and  of  Human  Freedom. 
Let  us  be  sure  that,  to  the  best  of  our  powers,  we  do 
not,  we  Englishmen  for  whom  others  have  died,  let  the 
champion  of  Public  Right  turn  aside  to  persecution  or 
to  lawlessness. 

Next,  let  us  keep  our  faith  in  our  fellow  man  and  our 
fellow  countryman.  He  has  astonished  you  by  a  heroism 


THE  TURMOIL  OF  WAR  253 

and  self-sacrifice  which  seemed  to  carry  us  back  into  the 
great  ages  of  legend;  do  not  now  lose  faith  in  him  about 
lesser  things.  I  do  not  ask  you  to  idealize  soldiers  as 
such.  It  is  a  foolish  practice.  But  remember  that  our 
soldiers  are  men,  and  very  brave  men,  and  that  they 
have  seen  with  their  eyes  and  touched  with  the  hands 
realities  of  which  we  scarcely  dare  to  think.  They  have 
learned  many  things  that  we  shall  never  know.  And  one 
thing  they  have  learned  is  the  nature  of  war.  The  gen- 
eral may  possibly  be  a  lover  of  war;  while  war  lasts  he  is 
a  very  great  man,  indeed,  and  when  peace  comes  he  may 
have  to  retire  upon  half-pay  to  Brighton.  But  the  men 
in  the  firing  line  are  not  lovers  of  war;  hardly  more  so 
than  the  ravaged  and  tortured  peasants  of  the  invaded 
territories. 

The  women  and  old  men  at  home  may  hate  the  enemy. 
Hate  is  an  emotion  which  grows  when  you  cannot  give 
vent  to  normal  anger.  But  the  soldier  has  given  more 
vent  to  his  anger  than  he  ever  needed.  He  has  often 
more  sympathy  than  hate  for  the  man  in  the  trenches 
opposite,  labouring  miserably  in  the  same  mud  and  snow 
as  himself,  caught  in  the  same  bewildering  net,  deafened 
by  the  same  monstrous  noises  and  torn  by  the  same 
shreds  of  iron. 

Mercy  has  not  passed  out  of  the  world,  nor  yet  justice. 

We  are  driven  back  to  a  sort  of  mysticism.  Mankind 
knows  that  suffering  itself  is  evil,  but  the  wish  to  cause 
suffering  is  incalculably  and  disproportionately  worse. 
All  the  cruel  deeds,  all  the  killing  and  maiming  that  is 
done  day  by  day,  night  by  night,  over  most  of  Europe, 
are  not  the  real  will,  not  the  real  free  actions  of  any  man. 
It  is  all  a  thing  that  has  happened.  Who  among  men 
ever  wished  for  this  war?  We  know  that  our  own  states- 


254  FAITH,  WAR,  AND  POLICY 

men  strained  every  nerve  to  prevent  it.  The  soldiers 
fighting  never  wished  it,  nor  yet  the  nations  behind  the 
soldiers.  The  world  itself,  the  great,  suffering  world, 
never  wished  it.  No  one  wished  it.  Not  the  great  crim- 
inals and  semi-maniacs  in  Germany  and  Austria  who 
brought  it  about;  not  even  they  wished  for  this.  What 
they  wished  was  wicked  enough,  Heaven  help  them; 
when  they  dreamed  of  their  triumphal  march  on  Paris 
and  the  rest  of  the  frischer  frohlicher  Krieg,  the  "fresh 
and  joyous  war."  But  they  never  wished  for  this  that 
has  come.  They  thought  it  would  be  quite  different. 
They  are  staring  aghast,  like  Frankenstein,  at  the  mon- 
ster they  have  created. 

It  makes  some  difference  in  one's  ultimate  judgement, 
it  saves  one  from  a  wild  reaction  against  all  organized 
human  society  as  an  accursed  thing,  if  we  realize  that 
the  war  is  not  really  the  work  of  man's  will.  It  is  more 
a  calamity  to  pity  than  a  crime  to  curse. 

The  man  who  would  prolong  the  war  one  day  longer 
than  is  necessary  for  the  establishment  of  the  Right,  if 
there  is  such  a  man,  is  if  possible  more  wicked  than  the 
wretches  who  caused  the  war.  Because  he  will  know 
what  he  is  doing,  and  they  did  not.  Yet  neither  must  we 
wish  to  end  it  a  day  sooner. 

One  is  sometimes  bewildered  by  this  drag  in  two  con- 
trary directions,  bewildered  till  it  is  hard  to  see  clear. 
Then  the  right  thing  is  to  go  back  to  August,  1914,  and 
remember  how  we  first  faced  the  question  of  war,  and 
how  the  great  leaders  of  the  nation  then  guided  us.  We 
knew  the  war  was  horrible,  and  we  faced  it  as  the  al- 
ternative to  something  worse.  I  believe  that,  among  the 
statesmen  and  others  whom  I  knew  personally,  almosj 
every  thoughtful  and  honest  man  who  then  made  up  his 


THE  TURMOIL  OF  WAR  255 

mind  to  support  the  war,  faced  it  very  much  as  he  would 
face  his  own  death.  We  made  our  choice,  and  we  are 
paying,  and  for  many  months  still  shall  go  on  paying, 
the  price  that  we  agreed  to  pay.  All  these  deaths,  all 
these  broken  hearts  —  we  agreed  to  them  beforehand. 
But  we  agreed  to  them  as  the  price  to  be  paid  for  a 
certain  result,  the  only  result  in  the  range  of  human 
practice  which  could  justify  so  ghastly  a  traffic.  We 
agreed  to  pay  this  price  in  part,  perhaps,  for  the  saving 
of  our  national  existence,  but  beyond  that,  not  for  the 
aggrandizement  of  ourselves  or  our  country,  not  for  ter- 
ritory or  trade  or  profit,  most  certainly  not  for  the  sake  of 
injuring  our  rivals  or  taking  revenge  upon  our  enemies, 
or  stealing  advantages  over  our  political  opponents.  We 
agreed  to  pay  this  price  in  order  that  the  idea  of  Public 
Right  should  not  be  swept  out  of  existence;  that  the  free 
peoples  of  Europe  should  remain  free,  and  some  at  least 
of  her  ancient  sores  be  cleansed ;  and  that  the  issue  of  our 
great  ordeal  should  not  be  fixed  by  the  mere  tug  of  war 
between  opposing  national  ambitions,  but  be  perma- 
nently based,  so  far  as  we  can  attain  it,  on  the  organized 
conscience  of  Europe  and  the  free  judgement  of  the 
civilized  world.  In  some  such  cause  as  that  we  will  en- 
dure to  any  limit.  For  a  baser  cause  the  war  would  be 
murder. 


THE   END 


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